Protea lorifolia

Scientific name: Protea lorifolia

Author: Joseph Knight, [1777?-1855]; Georges Henri Fourcade, [1866-1948]

Common name: Riemblaarsuikerbos, Strap-leaf sugarbush

Family: Proteaceae

Location

You can find this plant below the Visitors Centre on the path from the Brunet Meadow to the source of the water cascades. It is in bed PR108b, which is a Rock Garden bed, devoted to members of the plant family Proteaceae. Here you will often see the White-cheeked Honeyeater, Phylidonyris niger, visiting the proteas.

Hunting in the garden for hidden eggs at Easter is fun and the plant kingdom offers many marvellous ‘eggs’ for our delight. So, here are a few you can admire now, though there are plenty more to be found.

Our feature ‘egg’ is the bud of Protea lorifolia the Riemblaarsuikerbos or Strap-leaf sugarbush from South Africa. Widespread in the southern and southeastern Cape of South Africa at altitudes of 450 m to 1400 m, our feature plant usually has pink flowers. This particularly striking white-flowering form was encountered on the drier inland mountains, at Baviaans Kloof near Humansdorf, Cape Province.

The Strap-leaf sugarbush requires full sun and well-drained soil, low in phosphates and nitrates. Usually it grows to 1.5 m – 2 m tall by 2 m wide.