Brunia fragarioides young flowerhead

The inflorescence of Brunia fragarioides grows solitary in a dense, somewhat globose head at a stem-tip. A flowerhead comprises numerous small florets, each covered in several rows of tiny, lance-shaped bracts attenuating to needle-like tips. These leafy, involucral bract clusters, independently positioned in the almost spherical head, are mostly cream-coloured, the outer or lower ones sometimes dull red and not tightly pressed together.

During the bud phase as the flowerhead in picture, it is less compacted than the smooth spheres of some other Brunia species. The florets are rather pointy, superficially reminding of the corona virus shape that is only seen under the microscope, but dwelling on people’s minds these days.

The specific name of the plant, fragarioides, is more flattering, derived from the Latin words fraga meaning strawberries, -aris meaning pertaining to and -oides meaning resembling, referring to the flowerheads resemblance to a strawberry.

Open florets are creamy yellow when young or dull red, the flowerhead finer-textured than during the bud stage, a bit like a human head of hair shorn short. The calyx of each floret is slightly longer than its linear petals. The exserted stamens are taller, while the two styles per floret are as long as the petals.

Flowering happens from late autumn to after midspring (Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; Andrew, 2017; iNaturalist; JSTOR).