Felicia erigeroides bud

This bud of a Felicia erigeroides flowerhead shows narrowly elliptic involucral bracts with hairy margins protectively enveloping their promise of many florets.

The yellowish green disc florets are already visible in the centre, the rays still so short that they are almost fully covered. The disc in picture has a cone-shaped central hollow, the central disc florets the least developed; peripheral disc florets open first, the central ones last. Disc florets are numerous and small, five-lobed and fertile.

A younger, shorter bud is visible in profile, out of focus in the background (www.plantzafrica.com).