Senecio spiraeifolius fruit fluff-balls

Fluffy Senecio spiraeifolius heads of white fruit pappuses are flattened along the vertical axis, notably less than spherical. The heads are held high on still green stalk necks.

The individual fruits will “lose their collective head” when the lower end of each fruit is no longer gripped by the flowerhead receptacle. Up to that time fruits were not only held in place during all of the preceding flowering and fruiting phases, but individually fed the necessary by the plant for full development in accordance with its nature.

Grown in this controlled manner, each fruit is equipped with the requisite set of family features for producing one more specimen, one plant of its species. Every plant characteristic is packaged in microscopic developmental instructions and implementation sequences with triggers, timed according to a particular set of readiness stages.

These triggers herald unique, genetic processes. They establish in combination one fully recognisable specimen of its kind. All this capacity is prepared and housed as potential inside every seed, to be germinated at a later date under conducive conditions.

A percentage of the seeds result in whole new plants, repeated true to type from their tiny beginnings, generation after generation (Manning, 2009; Manning and Goldblatt, 1997; iNaturalist).