Diastella proteoides buds

When the Diastella proteoides flowerhead is still only buds or closed perianths, the tips are purple ellipsoids. Four pale lines indicate the seams of the segments. One of those seams (on the outside) will be broken when the elongated style escapes to position the pollen presenter above the level achieved by any perianth.

This is when the pollen is ripe and the time arrives for the style to wrestle free from the perianth’s hold. Before the parting, the pollen is transferred from the anthers on the inside of the perianth tips onto the pollen presenters.

The leaves around the flowerhead point up, while the narrow floral bracts, white, tapering and hairy, point outwards in picture from below the flowers (Manning, 2007; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; http://pza.sanbi.org).