Syncarpha paniculata

Called the bruidsewejaartjie in Afrikaans (bride everlasting), Syncarpha paniculata produces terminal clusters of delightful hemispherical, discoid flowers. The papery bracts of the flowerheads start off yellow or pink, later to turn white or cream-coloured. The leaves are narrow, sharply pointed and silvery felted, growing densely on erect branches.

The distribution lies mainly in the Western Cape, extending into the Eastern Cape coastal and Langkloof areas. Plants are fairly short-lived (Manning, 2007).

Vlok and Schutte-Vlok (2010) describe how large harvests of everlasting flowers (mainly from the genera Syncarpha, Helichrysum, Edmondia and Phaenocoma), used to be collected from the fynbos to decorate “floats” in pageants. This practice lasted until flower availability for seeding of new plants became severely hampered.

Never pick as many as half the flowers growing in an area, preferably much less! And respect the law relating to other people’s land as well as permitted distance from public roads when picking a flower. Even the indigenous San people knew long ago not to take all the fruit from a bush in the veld.