Asparagus asparagoides bud and flower

The shiny, green and fleshy cladodes of Asparagus asparagoides curve down like the spiral volute of an Ionian column or horns pointing the wrong way for the beast wearing them to win a fight. Grown alternate on the zigzagging stems, neither the temple column nor the horn analogy quite works for these flattened stems resembling leaves, although by now the leaf curvature is noted.

The flower-shape has two extravagances: firstly, the oversized conical group of white filaments that ends abruptly in a cluster of dark orange anthers and secondly the elaborate recurving of the strap-like tepals.

The filaments cohere but are free, not attached to each other. There is a superior ovary hidden among their bases in the bisexual flower. The green band on the tepals is more pronounced on the outside surfaces as seen in the still closed bud in picture.

The pendulous flowers emerge solitary from the cladode base but apparently from under the axil, not above it (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2010; Privett and Lutzeyer, 2010; iNaturalist).