The three periant lobes at the side of the centre of the flowerhead remain united and form a hairless, rolled sheath, except for some rigid hairs on the margins.
[5] The ornamental pincushion can be distinguished by its spreading habit, with horizontal branches, leaf-shapes that range from oblong with teeth in the earliest growth of the season to entire and oval closer to the flower heads.
The flower heads are generally at a right angle to the branch it grows from, on the perianth lobes are only some soft hairs and the pollen presenter has a skewed shell shape.
The closely related L. patersonii is more tree-like, with larger, less variable, broadly oblong leaves that consistently have three to eight teeth near the tip, woolly perianth lobes and upright flower heads.
[2] In 1809, Joseph Knight published a book titled On the cultivation of the plants belonging to the natural order of Proteeae, that contained an extensive revision of the Proteaceae attributed to Richard Anthony Salisbury.
[7] Leucospermum cordifolium can be found in a strip between Soetanysberg, Bredasdorp, Elim and Napier, Western Cape in the southeast, through Stanford, Caledon, Onrusrivier and Botrivier, to Aries Kraal in the northwest, in the foothills of the Kogelberg.
Unlike close relative L. patersonii that is confined to limestone ridges, L. cordifolium can only be found on acid soils that derived from Table Mountain Sandstone.
Groups or individuals grow in open, hilly terrain at 30–450 m (100–1500 ft) in a fynbos vegetation that mostly consist of other Proteaceae, several Erica species and Restionaceae.
After a fire has cleared the vegetation cover, increased daily temperature fluctuations and chemicals from charred wood seeping to the seeds with the rain, promote germination and so revives the pincushion at these locations.
[6][8] Tests showed that germination is best with the temperature fluctuating daily between 9 and 24 °C, which corresponds to the micro climate during winter in its home range after the vegetation has been cleared.