Leucospermum cordifolium budding beginnings

The stem-tip bud of a Leucospermum cordifolium flowerhead at this stage looks like a woolly knob, the details of the emerging individual flowers that comprise it arranged according to numbers in a Fibonacci series.

Snowy at its tip, this bud is already eye-catching although still ignored by the plethora of prospective nectar users.

At the angular leaf tips several glossy red teeth are spaced like beads along the whitish upper margins. Faint hairiness with a velvety texture is present next to the pale leaf midribs and some lateral venation on the blades.

The leaves, roughly oval but variable in shape, are sessile meaning stalkless. A leaf may be from from 2 cm to 8 cm in length (Manning 2007; Matthews and Carter, 1993).