Wachendorfia thyrsiflora panicle, not a thyrse!

The specific name of Wachendorfia thyrsiflora is interesting as the inflorescence is not a thyrse but a panicle. The well-known Australian kangaroo paw flowers belong to the same family.

The flowers grow in crowded clusters on side-shoots of the main stem of the inflorescence. Only some flowers from the different side-shoots in the panicle are open at a given time, producing patches of colour all the way up.

Wachendorfia and Barberetta, two South African flowering genera are among a wider group that display a rare flower feature of dimorphism: the style and one stamen are deflected to one side, the other stamens point the opposite way. The function of this feature was not yet understood at the time of writing (Ornduff and Dulberger, 1978 in New Phytologist vol. 80; iNaturalist; Wikipedia; www.plantzafrica.com).