Othonna macrophylla fruit prepared for flight

Remember the Atomium Museum in Brussels? The final phase of an Othonna macrophylla fruithead resembles the shape of this building, apart from the outlying semispheres of the Othonna bristles not connected to each other as are the spheres of the Atomium.

The fruits are almost ready for flight, courtesy of wind ranging from breeze to gale. Each fruit will land near or far, possibly roll until it sticks to something and comes to rest. Then follows a waiting phase of unknown duration. Should it not be eaten, rot or be otherwise mutilated, rain will arrive in the fullness of time to trigger germination of the viable seeds. The life that follows will be long or short, successful or not. Every species plays its own numbers game of likelihood.

This whole complex plant life phenomenon has been worked out slowly by Vegetable Moses, the father or summary of billions of evolutionary events, crafting botanical diversity because there was enough time and the earth was kind.