Anginon difforme

This plant is an Anginon, a shrubby genus of 12 species all endemic to southern Africa. The sparsely branched shrub is leafless at the base, the leaves seemingly simple and undivided.

This raises the possibility that the plant in picture may be Anginon difforme, the common needle-leaf, which is a woody shrub growing rigid stems from 1 m to 3 m (SA Tree List No. 568.5). Not all plants with South African Tree List numbers fit best into the Trees Album of this Site.

A. difforme is widely distributed in the Western, Eastern and Northern Cape on steep, rocky sandstone and quartzite slopes, mainly in fynbos. The species is not considered to be threatened in its habitat early in the twenty first century (Coates Palgrave, 2002; Manning, 2007; iSpot; www.redlist.sanbi.org).