Protea

I heard about proteas and I saw the first ones only in Australia. Indeed, the entire family (Proteaceae) “lives” in South America, the South of Africa and Australia. It is an ancient family, easy to see if you look a the stiff simple leaves and the thistle-like flowers. The ancestors of today’s intriguing looking proteas (my picture) grew in Gondwana a few hundred millions of years ago. The petals are not soft, but they have a tomboish aspect; they are poky and bold. In fact the flower seems to be more a cone than a… flower. There are so many varieties of proteas, that Linnaeus gave their family the name Proteaceae after Proteus, the Greek God who changed his appearance whenever he pleased.