Didelta spinosa, belonging to the family of Asteraceae, is a Southern African woody shrub or small tree endemic to the West Coast and found from Saldanha Bay in the south across the Gariep into the south-west corner of Namibia.

[2] Leaves are opposite, shiny, oval to elliptic with margins rolled under (revolute) with irregular spine-tipped teeth - young leaves and twigs somewhat felted; flowers with an outer row of unusually large and leaf-like bracts with mucronate apices, and which become membranous with age; fruits in spine-fringed cells.

[3] Recent phylogeny studies have placed the genus Didelta and Berkheya spinosissima in the same clade.

[4] The beetle Julodis viridipes has been recorded feeding on the foliage of D. spinosa,[5] whereas the nematodes Scutellonema brachyurus, Paratrichodorus meyeri and Xiphinema loteni have a close association with the tree.

[7] Joseph Gaertner in his monumental work "De frvctibvs et seminibvs plantarvm" of 1788-1792 published the species as Favonium spinosum (see illustration).