Protea repens persistent flowerheads

Protea repens bushes may not be the most elegant shrubs when they become tall in dense stands. This tends to happen where the fynbos hasn’t burned for a long time. On this plant, grown taller among earlier competing vegetation now given up the ghost, the remains of several past flowering seasons persist.

The current season’s flowerheads are still blooming at the top of the shrub, while those of last year are firmly closed around the seeds in a cone-shaped clasp by the involucre. The receptacle bases of past flowerheads and a diminishing presence of residual, dry involucral bracts on top of them are found among the lower branches.

Next year’s flowerheads will be even higher if fire stays away, while the white flowerheads present now will become dark brown. They retain their seeds until triggered by the heat of a veld fire, a natural part of the P. repens life cycle. The plant may retain its seeds in closed cones, accumulating them for up to ten years before this happens. There has to be fire in fynbos at "the right" intervals. If people start no accidental fires, "the right" solution, albeit occurring at irregular intervals will do just fine. The brown thickly haired seeds will then be wind dispersed onto the nutrient rich ash and await rain.

Some other Protea species also retain dried fruiting heads for several years in this manner (Euston-Brown and Kruger, 2023; Manning, 2007; Rebelo, 1995; Rourke, 1980; iNaturalist).