Mimetes cucullatus inflorescence

These flower headlets of Mimetes cucullatus are shown to be positioned as small spikes of four to seven white flowers below each of the spoon-shaped red inflorescence leaves clustered at the stem tip. Above the hairy tube of each perianth the arched neck of the pollen presenter (later to function as the style, a female flower component), can be seen working its way out of bondage. It will soon spring erect and hold the pollen at the ready for being smeared onto birds and insects that drop instalments of it off at other flowers of the same species. The unwitting postmen of the floral world!

Looking carefully, one can see two pollen presenters that have already been released and straightened. In Mimetes cucullatus the styles usually become red in colour as they mature, while these ones are white. The four hairy perianth segments of each flower, with anthers inside their tips where the pollen is produced, hang down and allow one of its seams to part for the pollen presenter (also the stigma), to be released. The stigma is still unripe and unable to be self-pollinated at the moment of the style’s release. It only presents the locally made pollen for transportation to other flowers, after which this stigma will mature and become receptive in turn to pollen from elsewhere (www.plantzafrica.com).