Gomphocarpus fruticosus flowers

The loose and drooping Gomphocarpus fruticosus flower cluster is suspended on a long peduncle, usually from 1 cm to 2 cm long. It emerges in picture from the node of an upper leaf-pair on the dark red stem. The leaves appear decussate. Only one leaf has turned yellow. The flower pedicels, i.e. the individual flower stalks, all radiate from the same point.

Each flower has its five waxy petals up top, fused together at the base and their tips flexed well back. The forward curving, pointed lobes are hairy and 6 mm to 7 mm long. The flowers sometimes have a slight pinkish tinge. They are about 2 cm long and 12 to 13 mm across.

In the centre of these flowers but down below are the five pouch-like corona or crown projections. The small, green columns of the corona lobes are open below, from the side resembling a tiny Greek temple… but those temples were rectangular, the remaining ones still are. There are some purple touches next to the corona lobes on some of these plants, as newly built Greek temples had bright colour sculpture friezes that nobody sees anymore in our time. Photos of European plants of this species lack the colouring of some of the local plants, conforming with the current appearance of the remaining temples around the Mediterranean.

Each flower also has five small, narrow sepals, visible here on the dangling bud below the flowers (Euston-Brown and Kruger, 2023; Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; Vahrmeijer, 1981; iNaturalist; https://weeds.org.au).