It has greyish, seated, oblong, 2–3 inch long leaves with two to four teeth near the tip and large, showy two-toned flower heads that are bright orange at first by and age to brilliant crimson.

The flowering stems are 5–8 mm (0.20-0.32 in) in diameter, stiff upright to horizontally spreading, with a thin covering of powdery hairs.

The lower part of the perianth called tube, that remains merged when the flower is open, is about 6 mm (¼ in) long, cylinder-shaped, somewhat compressed sideways and hairless.

[2] Joseph Martin, a French plant collector who was gardener at the Jardin du Roi in Paris, probably was the first to collect the silky-haired pincushion in 1788.

Although there seems to be no written record of his Cape visit en route to Mauritius, the collection of Proteaceae he sent to Jean-Baptiste Lamarck makes it evident that he at least reached the upper Breede River Valley between Worcester and Tulbagh.

Based on another specimen, English botanist Richard Anthony Salisbury described Leucadendrum ellipticum in 1809 in a book titled On the cultivation of the plants belonging to the natural order of Proteeae, that was officially authored by Joseph Knight.

It is very tolerant of drought, which frequently occurs in the arid type of fynbos where it grows, with average annual precipitation as low as 250 mm (10 in).

When the fruits are ripe, about two months after flowering, these fall to the ground, where they attract the attention of ants with the fleshy pale coating called the elaiosome.

The seeds germinate because of the increased daily temperature fluctuations caused by the removal of the overhead vegetation, and chemicals that wash out of the char during the winter rains, so regenerating the local population.