Protea neriifolia many flowerheads of different ages

When a mature Protea neriifolia bush flowers, as this one near Hermanus in August, many of its stem-tips bear the new, colourful flowerheads. Resting in December and January, as some people also do, P. neriifolia flowering peaks during autumn in the west of its distribution range, during spring in the east. This one did not check the instructions, or may still do better in autumn.

The “obligate-seeding” Protea species, the ones dependent on fire for seed release from the cones, include P. neriifolia. They retain their dry fruitheads on the plant for years in fire-protected woody cones. New heads continue to grow annually from young branches bypassing the “fruits-in-waiting” old heads.

One can roughly determine the age of a bush since its first flowering, by counting the bypass branches on the same stem up to the coloured head (Rebelo, 1995; Geerts, 2021, Protea maturation rates and fire return intervals in a Mediterranean ecosystem: testing the rules of thumb at a local scale. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 30, 971–977; iNaturalist).