Leucospermum wittebergense flowerhead

The flowerhead of Leucospermum wittebergense starts off cream coloured. As the pink or carmine pollen presenters escape from the cover of their four-segmented perianths, straightening up and taking the pollen with them, they lend the pinkish appearance to the flowerhead. This pincushion blooms from late winter to summer.

In the photo some freed pollen presenters are erect in the front, while some perianths at the back are still enveloping them. Here the hairy perianths with their dark heads like a matchsticks detain the pollen presenters, the style tips.

This captivity lasts until the pollen can be properly deposited from the anthers in the perianth segment tips onto the pollen presenter tips. The styles that are still only half-freed here, can be seen curving beside the perianths where some of them have partly slipped out through the slits between two of the segments.

The fully opened perianths show all four segments recurving downwards, beside the erect and much longer style, tipped by the pollen presenter. The pink to carmine styles become 1,2 to 1,9 cm long (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; iNaturalist).