Brunia paleacea flowering as if its life depends upon it

Profuse blooming covers the top of this Overstrand Brunia paleacea bush during September. Many heads in evenly flowering, flat-topped inflorescences prove that lazybones can learn diligence from plants, including this one, not only from ants.

As a B. paleacea plant increases in height the latest, creamiest white inflorescences are added on top of the bush, exceeding the ageing ones that darken as they disappear from sight under upper growth. Some young stem-tips are already taller than the upper inflorescences.

The seeds of serotinous species (like this one most probably is), are retained in the old heads on the plant, and mostly only released by fire (Bean and Johns, 2005; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; Midgley and Enright, 2000: Serotinous species show correlation between retention time for leaves and cones. Journal of Ecology, 88, 348 – 351; iNaturalist).