Mimetes chrysanthus flowers

The yellow flowers of Mimetes chrysanthus grow in dense spikes among the leaves of the cylindrical stem-tips. More florets are borne in one inflorescence of M. chrysanthus than in any other Mimetes species.

The style is about 3 cm long, the pollen presenter at its tip needle-like. In picture there are a few club-shaped perianths still closed, shorter than the long thin styles already escaped with the pollen presenters, later to function as stigmas, at their rigid tips. The flowers exude a faintly sweet fragrance. Bees and orange-breasted sunbirds are involved in the pollination of this species. Flowering happens in autumn.

The leaves of M. chrysanthus grow stalkless in spiral arrangement and overlapping up the stems, not changing appearance at the stem-tips where the flowers are borne among them.

The leaf shape is lanceolate to elliptic, the leaf surfaces becoming hairless as they age. A single, broad tooth is present at the tip of every leaf, cartilaginous and reddish. Leaves become from 3 cm to 4,5 cm long (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2010; http://www.pza.sanbi.org).