Tarchonanthus littoralis hiding her fruits in wool

The prominent, creamy white inflorescences of Tarchonanthus littoralis are made up of individual florets clustered in small heads, in turn grouped together in large, branched sprays at stem tips.

Male and female flowers, growing on separate trees, both have five-lobed corollas. The male flowers have funnel-shaped tubes and sterile ovaries with long styles in the centre, as well as their functional male parts, the striped anthers, positioned around the base of the style. The female flower has recurving corolla lobes with a protruding style; in this case it appears in working order. Most flowering happens from midsummer to early autumn.

The fruits are achenes or small nutlets, densely covered in white woolliness. An achene is a type of fruit, a small, dry, single-seeded one (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2010; www.plantzafrica.com).