Didelta spinosa disc floret buds

Disc florets still closed, the Didelta spinosa buds are gathered closely together and erect, like people sacrificing personal space in favour of warmth, physical or emotional. There are even hints of a proud pattern in the way they are arranged, as if following a Fibonacci cult involving numbers turned geometry.

Around them, the ray florets are spread in wagon wheel fashion, as flat as can be given the hindrances; colourful but all sterile. Didelta seeds grow from the disc.

The ray surfaces are folded into a short tube at the base. At the other end, three pointed tips form the ends of three longitudinal bands, the blades of the doubly channelled rays (Manning, 2007).