Agathosma martiana stamens and styles

Buchu flowers of the Agathosma genus usually have spreading stamens above the ring of mostly white petals. Seen up close here in the Kouga River valley, the Agathosma martiana flowers disclose not only stamens but other intimate details.

The five stamens of a particular flower may vary in ripeness. The dominant flower (upper right) has one young anther that is still pale purplish, while the others have turned brown to nearly black. Where the filaments have already turned brown, the style seems to have come into its own. The female parts mature after the male ones, thus avoiding self-pollination. There are red-tipped staminodes around the greenish translucent style of each flower.

The style is fleshy and cylindrical, emerging from the centre of the usually three carpels of the ovary. The style is shorter than the filaments and not as white (Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; JSTOR; iNaturalist; http://www.worldfloraonline.org).