Aspalathus spinosa subsp. spinosa flower

The petals of the Aspalathus spinosa subsp. spinosa flower are yellow in different shades. The banner reaches a deeper hue, the keel the palest, while orange arrives with flower age.

Ignore the banner for a moment and the rest appears like a sheep’s face with the wings like long, narrow ears, spreading just enough to cover the eyes and sustain the illusion.

The wings are longer than the keel. The banner is about triangular in its lobe part, erect with narrow rounded tip. These flowers grow solitary or in pairs from leaf axils or at spine bases, which amounts to the same. The flowers are up to 9 mm in length, maybe also in diameter.

The sparseness of the short, white hairs appressed to the leaves is clear to see in the photo (Curtis-Scott, et al, 2020; Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; Pooley, 1998; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; iNaturalist; http://www.worldfloraonline.org).