Protea cynaroides, procreative goings-on

Domestic struggles take so many forms in the land of the living. These “adolescent” (female) styles in a Protea cynaroides flowerhead have had enough of being boxed in by male domination, encapsulated inside their perianths. They are straining their powerful cylindrical bodies for escaping the stranglehold.

Quite prepared and determined to follow their natural destiny, they compromise their femininity by taking on some male work in return for standing tall in the sun: They proudly bear the survival necessity, the pollen, on their sticky heads, the stigmas.

There is full acceptance that this moment is not yet for them as women, their rebellion constructive, within the plan for the future of the species. They hold the pollen available for transportation to other florets while remaining virginal and patiently subservient, awaiting their big moment.

No visitor of whatever species will get past them without rubbing sides to reach the enticing juice, stored below inside the flowerhead base. Touching is such a ubiquitous wonder of procreation, so much more than rubbing off and contamination. Disgustingly unflattering! But they tell the same story, achieve the same goal.

Thus the pollen distribution service providers, mainly birds and insects, lured by home made liquor called nectar, unwittingly relieve the pollen presenters of their sticky loads. Weirdly complex for a logistics arrangement, but inspired.

Once the everyday magic of this florally enhanced postal service is fulfilled, the styles revert to the feminine affair of becoming receptive to and fertilised by pollen. It has to be attracted from some place else in the big wide world, mainly only over there, as long as it is not from the home flower itself. In a life-changing moment many a style gets blessed by an itinerant "holy one" of dubious appearance, definitely secular in nature. Crowning of the style head by a tiny pollen grain is the beginning of fulfilment.