A gathering of Gazinias.

Pictures are perfect, even if they aren’t perfect pictures. I can study flowers at leisure and marvel at detail.

Unravelling slowly, protective green bracts peel back, revealing purple plum pink pushy ray flowers.

Gazinia belong to the Asteracea family of plants. The flowers are composite. Outer “petals,” unfolding around the rim, are small ray florets. The mass of florets in the flower centre are disc florets.

Disc florets open from the outside in.

Disc flowers are small and the usual flower structure, a pistil surrounded by anthers, is not apparent at first glance.

Disc florets, opening from the outside in.

Ray flowers unfold carefully, perfection takes a bit longer.

So what is going on with the ray flowers?

Five anthers fuse along their edges to form a tube. Filaments are separate, tiny, and hidden at the base of the flower.

If you look at the top of the anther tube a small hole is visible in some cases. The hollow tube is a real thing.

Where is the stigma with its style?

New buds radiating out from the centre. The first pollen grains are already visible on fused anther surfaces.

Now for the really cunning feature in the last picture.

Stigma and style travel up the pollen tube. Bi-lobed stigmas protrude from a number of disc florets towards the rim.

It pays to take a few good pictures of a flower and have a closer look.