Zygophyllum microcarpum flourish and failure

In this half-open Zygophyllum microcarpum flower the petals are still hidden, the sepals appearing petal-like while the stamens seem to peer around like confused novices. The style is tall and straight, its stigma insignificantly small.

The plump leaflets point their mucronate tips nearly vertically, a hard task when branches and stalks upholding them grow at so many angles. There seem to be tiny stipules at the base of some leaflets.

There is also a yellowed, failed flower one node below the young flourishing flower; its style still stoically persistent at the top, but the bulge and green wings of a normal fruit not forthcoming. Maybe flowering does not work if not happening at a proper stem tip.

Reproduction is a percentage game like all forms of sport and other endeavours involving achievement by the living (Shearing and Van Heerden, 2008; iSpot).