Aspalathus kougaensis woody stems

The lower, woody stems of an Aspalathus kougaensis shrub are bare and smooth with occasional bulges where earlier side-branchlets have dropped off, or their buds didn’t materialise. The bark is pale greyish brown.

When veld becomes old during long intervals between fires, the small, leaf-bearing branchlets are mainly higher up where sunlight makes their food production activities effective.

The bush is single-stemmed, which will cause a fire to kill it; new growth for the species only possible from seed. This means the multistemmed resprouter species with thick basal stumps protected from burning by being underground, can soon sprout many green shoots at ground level. Boosted by a still intact root system, this early growth acceleration gives plants head start over the reseeder species that succumb in fire (Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; JSTOR; iNaturalist).