Wahlenbergia albens blue styles

The erect, blue styles of the Wahlenbergia albens flowers in picture differ. The younger flower on the right has its three style branches still cohering, in the older one the short, stubby branches are spreading and curving out.

The shape of the younger style-tip with its unexpanded stigmas gave the plant its Afrikaans common name of witmuistepelkaroo (white mouse nipple Karoo). The experts who chose that name long ago lived closer to nature than most people do these days, but still probably obtained their information in this case from dead mice.

Why white was added to this name must relate to the petals, as the style is blue, particularly at its tip. The yellow-petalled form of the flower was ignored or not seen as much. Several of the shrub-like wahlenbergias are referred to as muistepelkaroos, causing the addition of colour and maybe other descriptors to the names for avoiding ambiguity.

The straight, cylindrical pedicel of one flower is visible in picture, ending at its top in the green calyx. The pale, channelled, lower surfaces of leaves and sepals, the margins rolled under, are also clear to see, as are the colour differences between stems of different ages and flower stalks (Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; iNaturalist; http://worldfloraonline.org).