Leucospermum cordifolium budding early days

In this budding Leucospermum cordifolium flowerhead the individual florets still hold their unelongated styles neatly in place, that means fully covered inside each intact perianth. The pollen is growing and ripening there on the insides of the pointed perianth segment tips, where the anthers reside. They surround the style in each floret, yet to appear and act first as pollen presenter, later as stigma. This happens when the pincushion flowerhead has opened, becoming a spectacular inflorescence.

This early floral stage in picture compares in humans to prepuberty. That is when little or no rebellion against parental control, not yet deemed to be repression, occurs in child behaviour. The household is often orderly or comparatively so, minds not overly burdened by child initiated home events. By comparison, the youthful florets stand here in perfect, artistically curved rows, as if formed up in primary school before lessons, teacher minds largely unperturbed.

Right on top of the flowerhead more florets are still due to appear, as more of them push the hairy, acutely pointed bracts away and add to the rows of perianth tips formed lower down (Manning, 2007; Leistner, (Ed.), 2000).