Leucadendron osbornei Rourke

Robust rigid shrub 1.5-4.0 m tall with a stout main trunk to 75 mm in diam. Branches stiffly erect, rigid, glabrous, 5-10 mm in diam. Leaves acicular terete, 15-28 x 1.5-2.0 mm, ascending, hard and cartilaginous, glabrous, slightly glaucescent, upper surface minutely canaliculate; slightly shorter in male plants. Male inflorescences densely clustered in groups of 8 to 16 on short (30-60 mm long) branchlets on flowering shoots. Inflorescence cylindric, 20-35 x 10 mm, pedunculate; peduncle 10 x 2 mm, sparsely sericeous, covered with tightly adpressed subulate bracts 2-3 mm long, glabrous, but margins ciliate. Floral bracts ovate, 1 x 1 mm, tightly clasping perianth, glabrous but margins ciliate. Perianth sessile, 5-6 mm long, straight, glabrous, bright yellow; perianth claws equally recurved at anthesis; tube cylindrical. Anthers 4; pollen powdery. Style filiform, 6 mm long, glabrous. Pollen presenter clavate-acute, 1 mm long. Hypogynous scales 2 mm long, projecting to top of tube. Female inflorescences free-standing, surrounded by a loose pseudo-whorl of patent involucral leaves, greenish ivory to yellow at anthesis. Flowering cone ovoid-clavate, obtuse, 30-40 x 12-14 mm, shortly pedunculate; peduncle 10-15 x 10 mm. Involucral bracts dark brown, very narrowly lanceolate-acuminate to subulate, 8-12 x 1.5 mm, tightly adpressed to peduncle, glabrous but margins ciliate. Floral bracts broadly ovate, acute, 3 x 5 mm, glabrous. Perianth 3 mm long, laterally compressed; tube region 2 mm long, densely sericeous; claws and limbs recurved, glabrous. Staminodes generally 3, anterior staminode usually absent. Style glabrous, 5 mm long, slightly abaxially deflexed in upper half. Ovary ovoid to spherical, glabrous, 1 mm long. Pollen presenter minutely capitellate, inconspicuously bilobed with glandular hairs on the abaxial face. Hypogynous scales ovate-acute, 1 mm long. Mature female cone ovoid-acute, 35-60 x 25-30 mm, brown, becoming silvery grey with age. Fruit a flattened black samara, 70 x 50 mm, apically retuse.