Agathosma martiana flowers

The flowers of Agathosma martiana grow in compact umbel-shaped clusters at stem-tips. The five sepals are lanceolate, keeled and hairy.

The five white oblong to spoon-shaped petals curve out. A few pinkish red dots are present in each of the widened upper petal parts, their number or pattern appearing random.

The fleshy, cylindrical filaments taper to their tips and spread in the gaps between the petals. Some stamens in picture bear large, bilobed anthers, still pinkish and unripe, while the older anthers in shades of brown and grey are smaller. Some of the stamens have already lost their anthers and even sagged into the gaps between the petals, their tips out of sight.

The five short, sterile staminodes of each flower have pointed red patches at their tips.

The dull green style is based on the ovary, the staminodes in a ring around them (Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; JSTOR; iNaturalist; http://www.worldfloraonline.org).