Helichrysum ecklonis small but flowering

 Still small and a little overwhelmed by the grass, this Helichrysum ecklonis plant holds its first flowerhead high, whitened from withering with no resolve in the neck. Natural white colouring is a possibility for the species but probably not in this one which only shows its outside, given what it has also produced. The lowly second head has good pink colour on the insides of its involucral bracts and the yellow of the disc.

Straw is dry stuff with no life left, but strawflowers or everlastings are renowned for retaining a complex, regular geometric shape in straw form, long after they stopped needing water. Flower arrangements made from these heads need only be thrown out when dust and cobwebs take over.

The bristles of the pappuses that allow the everlasting seeds to fly on the wind are not fused in a solid ring around the seeds in Helichrysum. They are usually grown in one row or ring (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; Manning, 2009; Leistner, (Ed.), 2000; Pooley, 1998; iNaturalist).