Limonium peregrinum or sea lavender

Limonium peregrinum, the sea lavender or in Afrikaans papierblom (paper flower), flowers profusely. Several spikes of neatly aligned buds in two ascending and forwardly angled rows make up each inflorescence.

Each cylindrical bud is thicker in its lower part where the partly brown calyx firmly envelops the pink petal bases. The still tightly rolled up petal tips already protrude far, getting ready to spread. The smaller buds at the spike tips are at this stage still whitish in their upper, petal parts.  

In the open flowers the five petals are only slightly divided in the undulating, shallow corolla bowls. The by now mainly antherless, five stamens of each flower spread markedly in picture, each attached to a petal base. Only one slightly elongated, beige anther is still retained by its filament, visible above the flower to the right (Manning, 2007; Leistner, (Ed.), 2000; Manning and Goldblatt, 1996; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; iNaturalist).