Berkheya cuneata crowned fruits

The brown Berkheya cuneata fruits grown from the disc florets are crowned with pointy pappuses.

One wonders at the functionality of these ring-shaped embellishments, composed of short bristles on the fruit tops. For this is a species that does not release the individual seeds but hold them together and safe inside the capitulum where they, or some of them, germinate.

The stiff bracts last from flowerhead days to guard the fruits, armed with ample numbers of marginal spines (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; Leistner, (Ed.), 2000; iNaturalist).