Osteospermum monstrosum fruithead profile

In profile, the pendulous Osteospermum monstrosum fruithead shows most colour in the dark outer bracts at the top and the pink-purple wing margins at the bottom. The fruit becomes 8 mm to 9 mm long and wider than long.

Inbetween, the broad, inner bracts are notable, although harder to see: They are as long as the narrow outer bracts, seemingly cohering at the tips of inner and outer bract, the one on top of the other. The bracts are over half as long as the fruits, the inner ones see-through, very thinly textured.

The developing seed visible in the centre of each fruit is green in the sense of colour as well as being unripe; the wing white inside the colourful rim. Hairiness in picture is restricted to the stalk and outer bracts (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; Manning, 2007; iNaturalist).