Lollypop Conebush

Female.
Obviously very closely related to Ld comosum, but with a very peculiar growth habit: plants form a horizontal mat of vegetative branches with erect stems 1-2m tall bearing the flowerheads and cones.
Being serotinous, the stems must be robust enough to survive fires to allow the seeds to disperse.

The last two fires in the area have come within 10m of this population, but it has not burned. Some of the plants are quite moribund, but others are still in the vegetative phase - it seems that weaker plants and plants in unfavourable areas never produce reproductive stems.
Attempts to grow these plants at Kirstenbosch and in lowland situations have so far failed.