The Flat Cap Gardener

Horticulture with a little nature thrown in

Mountain devil, Lambertia formosa

The mountain devil, or Lambertia formosa, is a plant that I have only become aware of recently, due to seeing the red, interestingly shaped flowers out of the corner of my eye. I saw them as I was walking through two of my favourite national parks. One is Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park (read here for more info), the other being Lane Cove National Parks. This member of the Proteaceae family is a prickly shrub to approximately 1.5 metres high, it is common in the Sydney area in heathy scrubs and open forests. It is common along the coast and ranges of New South Wales. The binomial name, Lambertia formosa, has the following meanings:

Lambertia-used to honour Aylmer Bourke Lambert (1761-1842) who was an English botanist and vice-president of the Linnean Society. Lambert spent time collecting specimens for an Australian herbarium and also grew Australian plants.
Formosa-the Latin word for beautiful.

The leaves of the mountain devil are stiff, dark olive green, hard, and stiff. They are arranged in whorls of three around the stems, but can be in whorls of four or six too. They taper to a sharp point at the end. They are rather linear in shape, to eight centimetres long by five millimetres wide. As the foliage is spiky, it is a good shelter plants for smaller native birds that live in the environment.

The flowers are what made this funny little plant stand out. They appear in a terminal cluster of seven red individual flowers. These flowers are surrounded by several bracts that are orange-green in colour. The nectar found in these flowers is loved nectar eating birds, which is the reason why the flowers are shaped as they are. Flowers are followed by woody fruits that look like a devil with horns, due to having two long projections. Flowering and fruiting occurs for a lot of the year, although I have only seen them in late summer and early autumn.

I really do like this quirky little plant. I was convinced that I had never seen this plant when I first saw it. That was until I took a walk along my usual route in Lane Cove National Park and saw it flowering-I had just never seen it flowering to notice it. I have also never seen it in cultivation, but I do think it looks perfect right where I saw it-in the scruffy bushland of two Sydney national parks that I love spending time in.