Protea nitida flowerhead

The flowerhead of Protea nitida has here reached the stage where the styles are bulging outwards within the upper involucral bracts. They are busy wriggling free from the perianths, exposing the pollen presenters at the style upper ends for pollination.

This stage is probably the prettiest of these flowerheads. Unfortunately for human admirers it doesnt last too long. This is, however, fortunate for the plant, as peoples predilection for picking flowers would rob the plant of fulfilling its primary mission of producing viable seeds.

The plants secondary mission involves feeding its pollination service providers, the diligent and hungry birds and insects; not the wandering human sightseers that make unintelligible little noises from being enthralled by the fynbos.

If this wasnt so, the Pope declaring Jupiters moons nonexistent after Galileo discovered them using his telescope, would have been right! According to that belief system, subsequently largely updated, nothing exists that isnt in some way useful to humanity, self-crowned at its putative pinnacle of creation.