Protea nitida flowerhead half open

The stage of liberating pollen presenters is underway in picture. Outer florets of the Protea nitida flowerhead, positioned in the 11 o’clock to half-past-four interval, have released their styles from the perianth stays that bound them during bud time.

Curving in but free, the top section of each style, the pollen presenter is clearly different, brighter cream coloured than the dull stalk part of the style below it. This tip is the part that changes its sexual role at maturity:

Freshly released from the perianth, the tip is initially covered in the pollen smeared onto it from its own anthers, situated on the inside of the perianth tip that now lies curled up and discarded at the foot of the style. A pollen presenter’s purpose is to paste own pollen as bestowed upon it at liberation, onto itinerant insects arriving to seek sustenance from the flowerhead.

Given their orderly ranks in compact formation, the phalanx of long styles can hardly miss incoming traffic, hence the name pollen presenter; they’ll present successfully much of the time, whether new arrivals are willing or not.

When this task is done, pollen presenters ripen and revert to their feminine role of being stigmas. The prospect, not the risk of being fertilised starts now. (All species barring humans use all opportunities of procreation. Still the supposedly circumspect, brainiest species out-breeds too many living species on earth.)

Once own pollen has been dished out or becomes dysfunctional, the pollen presenter’s first task is done. Now on the receiving end, the ripe stigma welcomes dispatch riders from other healthy flowers for consummation, the concluding of stage two in its reproductive obligations. This is when a pollen grain grows from stigma to ovary and meets its match.

Insects may well know whether they’re coming or going but not whether they’re getting or giving, while inside a flower. At their level among the social strata of the living, gorging oneself receives full attention; no time to be wasted on small talk with fellow dinner guests and no spare brain capacity for reflecting upon the magnanimity of sharing benefits among other life forms. Insects are not paranoid, have so far never been known to suffer delusions of grandeur. Every head, pretty or not, is only to be bothered by complexities fitting its capacity.

The majority of the florets of this flowerhead are still closed in bud mode. On the lower left side, the outer florets are, however, already showing the freed bulges of several lower style parts, battling with the perianths not yet releasing the tips from their grip, so they may straighten, reduce stress and scout around for low-flying objects. All in good time, when ripe enough to carry pollen grains upon their presenters, they’ll break free.

Towards the centre of the flowerhead a multitude of buds are growing steadily for their moment in the P. nitida prom parade. Their purplish brown perianth tips coherently spiral anticlockwise around the flowerhead centre in a flowing pattern, like a galaxy of stars dancing gracefully in their own expanse of free space.

The difference? Down here Hubble is not needed to witness the wonder, as every bee can see.