The leaves of the waboom or Protea nitida assume their mature, bluish colour soon after the youthful, rosy phase of new stem-tip growth. There is very little actual green on waboom foliage, the older leaves more blue-grey than blue-green.
Bursts of new growth are stimulated by rain. The photo was taken early in March at the end of the dry season in the Jonkershoek Valley. The leathery leaf texture arrives later. Leaf midribs remain visible through both stages, while the slightly protruding tip parts on young leaves become evenly rounded later. A glimpse of red is sometimes retained on the margins of older leaves.
P. nitida leaves and flowerheads present many differences. Some are age related, others intraspecies variations, while the vagaries of photography or herbarium retention also suggest plant features.
Different cameras, settings and options for pressing buttons and turning knobs bring a myriad of colour and shade outcomes. Personal styles of photographers, light, angles, composition and more factors impact on these picture products, sometimes deluding botany students about the true nature of a plant.
Inspecting plants in gardens or preferably in nature strengthens the concepts held about species. Catching plants in more stages and focussing on detail escalate data bases. Information gathering objective changes render old collections less relevant. New questions asked multiplies search requirements, exhausts capacity and reshapes interests. New quests also reveal unexpected new information as the living world is in continual transformation. Probably more continuous than continual.
Then comes the realisation that the plant is a unique living entity, the reality kicks in of seasonal changes, life stages and intraspecies variations and regional differences. And worse: Every moment of a plant living in any specific conditions brings its own reality, contributing to unique responses in appearance. Just put the house plant outside for a few days or check the garden after rain.
Human memory may have poorer descriptors and classes for storing some perceived attributes, such as finer nuances of colour, less perceived form differences and other features that lack clear categories of attribute classification. Spare a thought for the witness under interrogation in court.
The ancient Greek philosophers despaired of human ability for mastering objective knowledge obtained via the senses. Still, human knowledge has become vast, our civilisation generates endless technologies. Human classification systems have come far and continue to gain in refinement.
Yet, there are forever shades of grey, green and whatever without the proper names and nuances in recordings. Objects and attributes are described in poor terms, lacking in the required precision of the moment, calling for more books and manuals. People's minds don't search and grasp in the same way.