Searsia dissecta fruit

    Searsia dissecta fruit
    Author: Ivan Lätti
    Photographer: Thabo Maphisa

    These pale, pinkish brown Searsia dissecta fruits shine as they change colour towards ripening, usually ending up red to red-brown. Their flattened bodies are triangular with rounded edges rather than the disc-shape of many Searsia fruits.

    The fruit tips below are broad and square or flat, occasionally hinting at a slight central dent like a notch. The fruits in picture hang on yellowish pedicels, at the ends of articulated branches earlier making up the inflorescence.

    Brownish bits of withered corolla lobes (or possibly stamens) protrude from under the calyx at the back of the fruits.

    Most Searsia flowers are single-sexed or the plants even dioecious, this one apparently bearing bisexual flowers (Manning and Goldblatt, 1997; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; iNaturalist).

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