''Leucadendron elimense'', the Elim conebush, is a flower-bearing

shrub A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...

, which belongs to the genus '' Leucadendron'' and forms part of the

fynbos Fynbos (; meaning fine plants) is a small belt of natural shrubland or heathland vegetation located in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa. This area is predominantly coastal and mountainous, with a Mediterranean clim ...

. The plant is native to the

Western Cape The Western Cape is a province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , and the third most populous, with an estimated 7 million inhabitants in 2020 ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

Description

The shrub grows to tall and dies after burning but the seeds survive. The shrub blooms from July to September. The seeds are stored in a toll on the female plant and only fall to the ground two months after the flower has ripened. The seeds could possibly be collected by rodents. The plant is

unisexual Dioecy (; ; adj. dioecious , ) is a characteristic of a species, meaning that it has distinct individual organisms (unisexual) that produce male or female gametes, either directly (in animals) or indirectly (in seed plants). Dioecious reproductio ...

and there are separate plants with male and female flowers, which are pollinated by small insects. In Afrikaans, it is known as .

Distribution and habitat

The plant occurs on the

Elim Plain Elim may refer to: Places * Elim Aboriginal Mission, Queensland, Australia Africa * Elim, Western Cape, a village on the Agulhas Plain in the Western Cape of South Africa * Elim (Bible), one of the places where the Israelites camped following th ...

from Gansbaai to

Bredasdorp Bredasdorp is a town in the Southern Overberg region of the Western Cape, South Africa, and the main economic and service hub of that region. It lies on the northern edge of the Agulhas Plain, about south-east of Cape Town and north of Cape Agul ...

. It grows mainly in shallow soil at heights of .

Subspecies

*'' Leucadendron elimense subsp. elimense'' *'' Leucadendron elimense subsp. nova'' *'' Leucadendron elimense subsp. salteri'' *'' Leucadendron elimense subsp. vyeboomense''

References

External links

* * * * * elimense {{Proteaceae-stub