Protea acaulos young and old

This season’s mature Protea acaulos flowerhead has pale, erect styles tipped with pollen presenters over a bed of brown, decaying perianth segments. Around it all is a ring of spreading involucral bracts, about spoon-shaped and concave in their pale-yellow tips.

Next to it, in the sunlight serving as limelight, the woody, grey receptacle that remains of a flowerhead of a previous season is usurping viewer attention.

The elegantly curved rows of dotted holes where the individual florets had been attached, form geometric patterns involving distances and angles in accordance with Fibonacci series increments, a phenomenon repeated many times in nature’s arty growth forms (Manning, 2007; Rebelo, 1995; Rourke, 1980; iNaturalist).