Leucadendron tinctum bergroos leaves and bracts

Only one Leucadendron tinctum flowerhead is produced at a branch tip. Male and female flowers grow on different plants as with all leucadendrons. One of the Afrikaans common names for the plant, bergroos (mountain rose), requires no explanation.

In picture, the central, involucral bracts form a compact, erect rosette with slightly outcurving tips in the outer rings where the bracts are bigger, yellow and upturned in the smaller, inner ones. Every bract is in position to subtend an expected female floret when the time comes.

Spreading widely around the bracts, the pink-based, cream-bladed and red-rimmed involucral leaves do there best to send colourful messages to prospective pollinators. This is quite early, as the female florets have not yet shown their thread-like styles, tipped with swollen stigma discs that will require touches of pollen when ripe.

There is also a peppery fragrance on male cones and a spicy one on female cones that form part of the marketing toolkit of the species.

After flowering, the female fruit-head hardens its by then incurving bracts into a woody and durable, protective cone over the developing fruits, the well-known, red toffee apples.

Rodents will in due course disperse the nut-like fruits in return for being fed (Marais, (Ed.), 2017; Privett and Lutzeyer, 2010; Manning, 2007; Bean and Johns, 2005; Leistner, (Ed.), 2000; iNaturalist).