Bulbinella cauda-felis many open flowers

The dense Bulbinella cauda-felis raceme in picture has opened nearly all its flowers. The lowermost ones have lost their anthers, only the upper flowers still have yellow anthers.

The striped pollinator is inspecting the last buds at the top for anything edible. Body contact with pollen that will stick and rub off on sticky stigmas is highly likely in these circumstances. The small green ovaries visible in the flower centres are topped with cylindrical styles and tiny stigmas, easy for the beetle to smear with pollen.

B. cauda-felis flowers sometimes have a pink tinge in their white tepals; not so in the photo taken in the Biedouw Valley during September (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; Manning, 2007; iNaturalist).