''Leucadendron foedum'', the Hopefield conebush, is a flower-bearing shrub belonging to the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

Leucadendron ''Leucadendron'' is a genus of about 80 species of flowering plants in the family Proteaceae, endemic to South Africa, where they are a prominent part of the fynbos ecoregion and vegetation type. Description Species in the genus ''Leucadendron' ...

'' and forms part of the fynbos. 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 Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

, and occurs from

Piketberg Piketberg (also sometimes spelt Piquetberg in the past) is a town in the Western Cape, South Africa, located about 80 km east of Saldanha Bay. The original spelling of the name was "Piquetberg". The town is in the foothills of the Piketberg mount ...

to Hopefield.

Description

The shrub grows tall and flowers from August to October. The plant dies in a fire but the seeds survive. The seeds are stored in a toll on the female plant, fall to the ground after a fire and are spread by the wind. 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 reproducti ...

and there are separate plants with male and female flowers. In Afrikaans, it is known as .

References

* http://redlist.sanbi.org/species.php?species=794-50 * http://biodiversityexplorer.info/plants/proteaceae/leucadendron_foedum.htm * https://www.proteaatlas.org.za/ldfoed.htm {{Taxonbar, from=Q18077422 foedum