Protea glabra when the carnival is over

If brown is your colour, the spent Protea glabra flowerhead that remains after the perianths, styles and fruits are all gone may be pleasing as a flower, vaguely resembling some Gazania flowerheads.

The variously curving involucral bracts are spreading attractively around the tall dark cone of the bare receptacle, a whitish ring at the bract bases separating them. The cone is about 1,5 cm in diameter and up to 2,5 cm tall.

Unlike all other Cape Protea species that typically retain their ripe fruit for long periods in the dry flowerheads, P. glabra releases its seeds as soon as they are ripe. The small, hairy nutlets are gone within about three months from flowering.

The dark cone remains as a long-lasting record of proud production performance, like a framed certificate in the factory den (Manning, 2007; Coates Palgrave, 2002; Rebelo, 1995; Rourke, 1980; iNaturalist).