NEVILLEA OBTUSISSIMA

Family: Restionaceae

Common name: Sprucecones

A RESTIO WORTH A CLOSER LOOK

Nevillea obtusissima is a robust, rush-like plant belonging to the Restionaceae — one of the many restios we see bending and waving in the Rooiels wind.

It grows to about one metre tall. Like other restios, it does not have the sort of leafy appearance we normally associate with plants. Its leaves are reduced to brown sheaths wrapped around the stems.

What really catches the eye, though, are the strange flowerheads.

Male and female flowers grow on separate plants. The male plants produce conspicuous, knobbly, cone-like spikelets, while the female plants carry dense flowerheads with less obvious spikelets. The female spikelets have long, pointed reddish bracts.

The flowerheads occur at the tips of the stems, usually with two or three club-shaped heads. The fruits develop into small brown nutlets.

DISTRIBUTION

Nevillea obtusissima occurs in the Western Cape fynbos biome, ranging from the Cederberg Mountains in the north to the Outeniqua Mountains in the south.

LIKES ITS FEET WET

Around Rooiels, we have found it growing on marshy slopes and in damp, lowland fynbos — exactly the sort of places where you might walk straight past a restio without giving it a second glance.

But take a closer look at those peculiar little cone-shaped flowerheads and suddenly Nevillea obtusissima becomes rather distinctive.

Conservation status: Least Concern.

Click to find out more on iNaturalist