Othonna perfoliata fruiting

Several fruits with long, hairy bristle attachments make up the sphere of sparse hairiness in the final phase of an Othonna perfoliata fruithead, before the wind demolishes it. Nothing of this flamboyance was visible earlier when the involucre still grasped all the parts tightly.

Each fruithead is a sphere of pappus bristles of equal length, pointing from the end of the fruits in directions evenly spaced, creating spherical shapes of the tips. 

The photo was taken in August in the westerly hills of Namaqualand near the Spektakelberg (Manning, 2007).