Pappea capensis stamens

The small, yellow Pappea capensis flowers in picture are all about anthers in the photo on this male tree. Some florets have stretched their filaments to show some white as well. There are about seven or eight stamens per floret in picture.

The species is generally dioecious, male and female flowers usually on different trees. The pale yellow or greenish flowers mostly grow in drooping, catkin-like racemes from leaf axils and stem tips, the catkins up to 16 cm long.

P. capensis trees may, however, also produce flowers of both sexes on the same tree and even in the same catkin: First the male ones and below them the female ones at the catkin tips. This arrangement is called androdioecious. Maybe pollination then happens partly by gravity.

Flowering happens in summer and autumn (Coates Palgrave, 2002; Schmidt, et al, 2002; Van Wyk and Van Wyk, 1997; Pooley, 1993; iNaturalist).