Sparrmannia africana flowers

Sparrmannia africana flowers grow in axillary heads near stem tips, umbels of about twenty flowers each. The buds droop on long pedicels, greenish white and ellipsoid with short calyx lobes at the base.

On the open flowers, mostly nodding, the white petals spread, away from the yellow mass of beaded, sterile stamens positioned around the dark fertile stamens of the centre, all tipped with purple anthers. The superior ovary (positioned above the attachment of other floral parts like sepals, petals and stamens on the receptacle, the flower base), has four or five locules or chambers in which a multitude of ovules await pollen.

The fruit forming after the flower is an about spherical capsule of 2 cm in diameter, covered in rigid bristles. The capsule dehisces when ripe, i.e. its four or five valves split open, releasing the seed.

Cream coloured veins radiate from the leaf base in picture, pale and spider-like on the dark green, hairy surface (Coates Palgrave, 2002; Van Wyk and Van Wyk, 1997).