PlantFiles: Pincushion Hakea
Hakea laurina

As well as the flowers the foliage has its attractions, beiing a bronze green, changing to the grey green similar to many eucalypts then brightening before they fall.

I've found this shrub particularly prone to blowing over in wind and it is the only plant in my garden that is staked. Keeping the top pruned while young to allow root development to keep up might have helped.

This is a large shrub, with beautiful and unusual flowers. The red flowers are in dense spherical clusters, from which the yellow styles protrude giving it its pincushion appearance. The flowers are rich in nectar and very attractive to nectar-feeding birds such as honeyeaters.
Like all Hakeas, the seed are in hard woody capsules, which are held on the shrub indefinitely, but which open a few days after picking to release two winged seeds.
Seed germinate very easily and I grew one from seed which is now a 3 metre shrub in my garden.
In the wild this plant is restricted to the South coast of Western Australia.