Ebracteola fulleri plenty of fruit

This Ebracteola fulleri plant deserves a medal for industrious fruit production. And not only for the fleshy, young ones higher up on the plant in picture, the yield of the current year still sporting the occasional dry petal. Also for the numerous blackened dry capsules sitting lower down in numbers for long, representing several earlier seasons. Ebracteola plants generally retain old capsules for years.

As on many other mesembs, ripe capsule dehiscence is triggered by moisture, the seeds released in batches during rain. Seeds retained when the not yet empty capsules dry out again, have to wait for the next shower to depart. One wonders for how long this hygrochastic species still leaks seeds from older capsules? And why capsules would be retained for so long once empty, if all seeds are flushed out over a short period? And whether the seeds retained after first rain don’t germinate in their locules when they get wet the first time, probably in vain (Williamson, 2010; Smith, et al, 1998; iNaturalist)?