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Home Home » GENERA P » Protea » Protea aurea subsp. aurea young flowerhead
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Protea aurea subsp. aurea young flowerhead

Protea aurea subsp. aurea young flowerhead
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  • Protea aurea subsp. aurea grown large
  • Protea aurea subsp. aurea having escaped a big fire at Greyton
  • Protea aurea subsp. aurea inside a young flowerhead
  • Protea aurea subsp. aurea old head closed again
  • Protea aurea subsp. aurea pink bud
  • Protea aurea subsp. aurea stem-tip leaves
  • Protea aurea subsp. aurea styles like needles
  • Protea aurea subsp. aurea young and old heads
  • Protea aurea subsp. aurea young flowerhead
  • Protea aurea subsp. aurea young flowerhead
  • Protea aurea subsp. aurea, the long and the white and the old
  • Protea burchellii
  • Protea caffra flowerhead towards the end of its cycle
  • Protea cordata
  • Protea cordata
  • Protea cordata flowerheads at ground level
  • Protea cordata scale leaves

Image information

Description

The pinkish coloured, thin pollen presenters of Protea aurea subsp. aurea are only slightly taller than the longest, inner bracts of the young flowerhead. The styles are white lower down and thicker than at the tips.

Only the inner two rows of involucral bracts bear the pinkish colouring that makes the heads pretty. The woolly-white bract fringes are accentuated on these upper bracts.

From the second row of bracts downwards (or outwards) the bracts are broad, obtusely pointed, contrasting against the narrow, oblong inner row that has rounded tips here. There are at least four rows of shorter and diminishing, brown bracts below.

Beauty and colour at the top for attracting pollinator birds, give way in the lower parts of the involucre to collective strength in the numerous, short and densely overlapping bracts. Their function is to form a hard wall around the ovaries that will take their time in becoming brown-haired fruits.

The nutlets are retained in this safe shelter, sometimes for a very long time (Manning, 2009; Coates Palgrave, 2002; Rourke, 1980; iNaturalist).

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78
Photographer
Thabo Maphisa
Author
Ivan Latti
 
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