Mimetes cucullatus spreading floral leaves

Mimetes cucullatus has flowers structurally consistent with the Proteaceae family it belongs to, but their presentation to the viewer is quite different. Instead of a cup-like involucre that encloses a mass of individual perianth tubes, the thin individual flowers grow in small clusters of four to seven under a specially coloured leaf-like hood or cowl, called a bract.

Such colourful bracts grouped together at the top of a flowering branch are easily considered by the casual observer to be the actual flower. So, in reality there is an abundance of flowers, but scattered spectacularly among coloured leaves instead!

The visible real flower parts are bearded silvery tufts at the end of perianth segments and behind or inside them; the styles are also the pollen presenters. Four such perianth segments form a tube, comparable to the corolla of many other flowering species. Deep down inside the tube are the nectaries that produce the enticement for the nectar suckers, the sunbirds and Cape sugarbirds that act as this plants pollinators. A little hidden behind the bearded tufts and under the red inflorescence leaves, one finds the small bunch of erect, usually red styles with their white and yellow tips (www.plantzafrica.com).

The styles are vital parts of the female reproductive structure, but when they are inactive, i.e. incapable of being fertilized by the pollen from their own anthers, they perform the (multi-skilled) function of acting as pollen presenters to the visitors; like serving the tea!