South Africa: The 2015 Journey

[Akira]

This is wonderous, rather than beautiful, to me.  I'm strongly drawn to the shapes of the pistil(s) and the anther(s).

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Remember this is a member of the Daisy Family so the "flower" is a complex composite of disk and ray florets. The disk flowers of this species have a very long and narrow fused pollen tube (5 anthers fused into a tube) that is almost whip-like, a disk corolla comprised of 5 fused petals with a two-coloured appearance, and tiny sepals formed into awns between the flowers. I didn't spot any styles (female stage of disk or ray florets). The long ligules (strap-shaped ray flowers) are covered in long hairs plus on every third ligule, a complex bug-like protrusion sparkling in various parts under UV. The bracts subtending the capitulae (flower heads) are shining bright by way of their UV reflective trichomes (hairs). I have never seen anything this complex under UV in any flower before.

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Here are some other endemics, first the small Romulea sabulosa of the Iris Family, then the slighly bigger Gladioulus watermeyeri of the Amaryllis Family. Both from Nieuwhoudtville, D3200 and the Coastal Optics 60 mm f/4 APO lens.

[Andrea B.]

Bjørn, found this about Gorteria diffusa. Your shot of this flower is stunning. "-)


Fly Pollination of Gorteria diffusa (Asteraceae), and a Possible Mimetic Function for Dark Spots on the Capitulum
S. D. Johnson and J. J. Midgley   
American Journal of Botany   Vol. 84, No. 4 (Apr., 1997), pp. 429-436   
Published by: Botanical Society of America   
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2446018 
Abstract
We investigated the functional significance of raised black spots on the ray florets of Gorteria diffusa (Asteraceae) in South Africa. Field observations showed that G. diffusa is pollinated by a small bee-fly, Megapalpus nitidus (Bombyliidae), which is strikingly similar to the raised spots that occur on some of the ray florets.....

[Bjørn Rørslett]

One of the numerous yellow "Daisy bushes" that are ubiquitous all over the craggy rock formations. This is a Didelta spinosa (Asteraceae) and will be the last one of the UV flowers from this trip. I promise. Indeed I do.

[Akira]

Remember this is a member of the Daisy Family so the "flower" is a complex composite of disk and ray florets. The disk flowers of this species have a very long and narrow fused pollen tube (5 anthers fused into a tube) that is almost whip-like, a disk corolla comprised of 5 fused petals with a two-coloured appearance, and tiny sepals formed into awns between the flowers. I didn't spot any styles (female stage of disk or ray florets). The long ligules (strap-shaped ray flowers) are covered in long hairs plus on every third ligule, a complex bug-like protrusion sparkling in various parts under UV. The bracts subtending the capitulae (flower heads) are shining bright by way of their UV reflective trichomes (hairs). I have never seen anything this complex under UV in any flower before.

Bjørn, thanks for the detailed description of this enigmatic flower.  As no-expert, I was not sure how to call each parts of this particular flower, so I was just referring to the parts where anther(s) and pistils usually are or can be seen. 

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Even trained botanists need from time to time to refresh their memory of all the details of these advanced flower structures. The basics might  be simple, but there are virtually endless permutations and modification of the basic parts. The Daisy Family is the largest of all plant families with around 25.000 recognised species.

Read this summary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteraceae#Flowers to get a hands-on appreciation of the complex flower heads seen in this large family.

[Akira]

Bjørn, thanks for the link.  I bookmarked it for the quick future references.

[Jakov Minić]

The flowers look like they're from space!

[Bjørn Rørslett]

The visit to South Africa is formally contained on a series of digital media, around 500 new entries into the main archive,  and pleasant memories of the landscape beauty and nice people I met and worked with.

Now all that remains is the tedious work of identifying all the unknown flowers and add the captions to the data base. Nearly all processing of files has been completed so no longer an excuse for *not* doing the chores

[JohnMM]

Here are some other endemics, first the small Romulea sabulosa of the Iris Family, then the slighly bigger Gladioulus watermeyeri of the Amaryllis Family.

Gladiolus is also a member of the Iris Family.

John Maud

[Bjørn Rørslett]

There are a lot of of family and species rearrangements these days due to molecular and DNA systematics. Sometimes an improvements sometimes a disaster not at least on the  nomenclature level.

The African species eventually posted on our specialist sister site www.ultravioletphotography.com will be named according to AGP (2009 or newer) and the Kew plant list. Names used in this thread are from the various handbooks I obtained in South Africa and do not necessarily reflect the latest family placements.

[PeterN]

Just back from a trip myself, I thoroughly enjoyed this thread! Thanks for sharing.

[Erik Lund]

Bjørn your attention to detail is amazing! Not only in the technical / gear and image shooting part of photography but also the detailed documentation descriptions location spices and keywords,,,, Impressive

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Weeks after weeks of heavy processing have elapsed and I'm finally seeing light in the end of the image processing pipeline ... oh yeah.

Well,  almost. Still pulling files and pumping them through the work flow, but images without captioning and taxonomic evaluation for the first time have dropped below 200 so can be optimistic.

My last SA image, hailing from Murdock Valley, Western Cape according to Goggle Maps. Might or might not be useful information?