Protea lacticolor last floral rites

Before the Protea lacticolor head loses the right to be called a flower(head), its tallest bracts still hold a shimmer of pinkish glamour, although the brown of its eventual discolouring is setting in on surfaces and marginal hair. The last stance of the styles is mainly against the perimeter, some collapsed parts collecting at different angles down in the centre. The shorter bracts on the outside are browner, dark-tipped like dirty fingernails, but sturdier, sitting nearer the fruiting that happens in the base.

The promise of youth is now transferred to the younger heads in the background, biding their time, as well as to the beginnings of new branches sprouting from leaf axils (Coates Palgrave, 2002; Rebelo, 1995; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; Rourke, 1980; iNaturalist).