PROTEACEAE 147 



Plate 29. 



A. Leucadendron decorum R. Br. I. Flowering twig of male plant, with fly. 

 Female flower. 5/1. 3. Male flower with abortive style. 3/1. 4. Nut. Nat. size. 



B. Protea rosacea L. (P. nana). 



C. Protea Mundtii Klotzsch, with visiting beetle (Trichostetha capensis). 



Leucadendron 



(Plates 27, 28, 29, 61.) 



Trees or shrubs with entire, sessile, hairy or glabrous leaves and terminal 

 heads. Flowers in involucred heads, dioecious. $ flower : Calyx regular, the 

 spreading segments bearing the anthers in the spoon-shaped apices ; a small 

 abortive pistil generally present. $ flower: the perianth-segments and the 

 clavate stigma just project beyond the scales of the cone. Fruit a nut, 

 enclosed between the scales of the cone, either flat and winged, as in most 

 species, e.g. L. decorum, or globose and crowned by the persistent style and 

 calyx, as in the silver tree and the more widely distributed Leucadendron 

 plumosum (shrubby). 



The genus includes over 50 species, of which only two are known to 

 occur outside the Cape region. 



Leucadendron decorum. Leaves elliptical, glabrous, with a red mucro. The 

 male heads 1 — 2 inches in diameter, the floral leaves larger and bright yellow, 

 while the bracts of the involucre are brown and membranaceous with recurved 

 points ; the perianth is bright yellow or tinged with orange. The female 

 heads are more oblong or conical, less showy and less numerous than the others, 

 about an inch in diameter when in flower, growing to about 2 inches during 

 their further development. The winged nuts are black and shining. 



When in flower this shrub is a great ornament to the mountains and hills 

 of the South West, as a single shrub may bear hundreds of bright coloured 

 heads which are so crowded that they exclude the foliage from view. Flowering 

 in spring ; the flowers are visited by several kinds of flies and beetles. 

 (See also Plate 61.) 



One of the species of Leucadendron, viz. L. concinnum, commonly called 

 Langbeen, is employed as a remedy against malaria in the Breede River valley. 

 According to the investigations of the Merck Research Laboratory at Darmstadt 

 the leaves contain an amorphous glucoside, named LevtCOglycodrin and a 

 white, bitter, crystallised principle, named Lewcodrin. 



19 — 2 



