Stachys cuneata flower profile

The difference between the lower (vacant) and upper (occupied) Stachys cuneata flowers is the vacant look of the unoccupied corolla below. The upper flower is entertaining a hungry grub, the thick-bodied, sluggish larva of some insect. The egg may have been deposited during a pollination visit if the hungry mother was multiskilled.

Such a credit transaction has to be honoured by the hosting plant in unforeseen consequences later when the egg hatches. Cash transactions of nectar for food are simpler, more to the flowers benefit. But life is complicated and lay-by (or laybuy) business is so haphazard up in the branches. Unbelievable, the price inflation of goods and services an honest flower has to contend with in today’s business environment!

Calyces that have lost their corollas, hopefully not from concern over fertilisation economics, are present in the lower whorl in picture. They provide information on calyx features of S. cuneata:

The stalked, hairy calyx is funnel-shaped with longer tube than its five similar lobes or sepals. The dull-green calyx surface is longitudinally lined purple, although the empty calyces in picture lack the purple lines of those still carrying corollas. The sepal lobes are angled out ever so slightly, their tips acutely pointed.

There are small, narrow bracts present near the base of the pedicels. Short white stem hairs are sparsely scattered on the dark purple stem in picture.

The corolla tube continues beyond the calyx for nearly half its length in the lower flower (very little in the upper flower), before the abrupt split between lower and upper lip occurs.

The upper lip is substantial in both flowers here, although less than half the length of the lower lip. The upper lip is distinctly marked dark purple near its base. There is a dark object near the upper lip surface, probably an anther.

The long, lower lip is extended forward horizontally (porrect), three-lobed, wavy and unmarked. Its lateral lobes reach about half as far forward as the central one (Shearing and Van Heerden, 2008; iNaturalist).