Protea neriifolia

The leaves of Protea neriifolia, the narrow-leaved sugarbush or in Afrikaans the baardsuikerbos (beard sugar bush), resemble those of the oleander, Nerium oleander. This feature was captured in the plant’s specific name. The baardsuikerbos name is shared with P. magnifica and possibly with some others among the bearded flowerhead Protea species.

The plant is a spreading shrub of 1 m to 3 m in height and 2 m in diameter (SA Tree List No. 93.1).

It is the conspicuously hairy tips of the inner bracts of the flowerheads that brought about the reference to beard in the common name. The name sugarbush comes from the copious supply of nectar produced in these (and other protea) flowers; the plant’s value proposition in pollination bartering with birds and insects.

The species distribution is in the south of the Western Cape from the Hottentots Holland Mountains, continuing in the southwest of the Eastern Cape, about as far as Gqeberha.

The habitat is fynbos slopes and flats on clay and sandstone, often in gravelly soil. The habitat population is deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century (Manning, 2007; Coates Palgrave, 2002; Rebelo, 1995; Rourke, 1980; iNaturalist; www.plantzafrica.com; http://redlist.sanbi.org).