HS Flora
| King Protea |
| Written by Paul Wood |
| August 09, 2007 |
|
Protea cynaroides  In 1966 Dr. Phil Parvin, a horticultural specialist from University of California at Davis, came to Maui on vacation and recognized The Valley Isle as his "spiritual home." So he accepted a position at University of Hawaii's Agricultural Research Center in Kula, Maui, his job being to experiment with new floral crops for Hawaii. Parvin made the connection between the Islands and a little-known family of southern hemisphere flowering shrubs called the proteas. Today Hawai’i has just under 200 acres dedicated to protea cut-flower production. Most of those are clustered near the site of Dr. Parvin's research—the Upcountry slopes of East Maui. In those fields, the monarch and dominating image of the industry is the flower pictured here, the king protea. No proteas are native to the Hawaiian Islands. Instead, these vivid plants grow south of the equator—75 genera and 1,000 species, most of them concentrated in either South Africa or Australia. These two continents are 4,000 miles apart, and the proteas in each area are so distinct from each other that botanists divide the group into two clear subfamilies. What this means is that the proteas, somehow, made a dramatic split that took place millions of years ago. That dispersion would seem impossible in light of the fact that protea seeds are incapable of surviving a dunk in the sea. They don't float or drift in the breeze; birds don't eat or carry them. That's why scientists use the protea family as evidence of "continental drift." We know that the Earth's crust is slowly shifting around. Hawai‘i, for example, moves four inches closer to Russia every year. South Africa and Australia continue to separate at a comparable rate. Therefore, at one point the two continents must have been fused together as one. As they separated, their evolving species of protea separated with them. As a flower, the king protea is confusing at first glance. The enormous red "petals" seem floral enough, although larger than life. But when you look into the center of the thing, you find innumerable downy structures arranged in beautifully geometrical spiraling pattern. Huh? It's too complex to be a flower in the usual sense. And of course, it's not. A single king protea "flower" is actually an arrangement of hundreds of flowers, all of them sprouting from a woody, plate-like structure called the receptacle. These flowers have no petals of their own. Instead, the bright, petal-like effect is created by colorful bracts—modified leaves—that give the entire floral collection, or inflorescence, the appearance of a single giant-sized blossom. (By the way, proteas aren't the only plants that sport this flower-by-committee approach. The "composite" family—Asteraceae—has a similar tactic, and it is one of the most successful plant families on Earth. This group includes the sunflowers and daisies, the thistle, the artichoke, lettuce and marigolds.) With king proteas, the effect of this floral plan is to produce a cut flower that is not only huge, but also longer-lived than almost anything else in the plant kingdom. Those petal-like bracts are not flimsy; they have real staying power. As the flower dries, it hangs together and forms a floral sculpture used in dry arrangements. The king protea is native to South Africa. In fact, in 1976 it was declared the national plant of that country. Specifically, it evolved in a region known as the "fynbos"—ranks of dry, wind-swept mountains that form the Cape of Good Hope, the blunt southern tip of the African continent. Here, folded treeless peaks create a dramatic, rather stark backdrop to the seacoast cities of Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. In the pockets and valleys of these mountains evolved 14 genera and over 300 species of proteas. The king protea is the most illustrious species of the crew. A tough, woody shrub, it grows about head-high at most. The flowers can unfurl themselves to one foot in diameter, although most attain a spread of six to eight inches. The term fynbos, or "fine bush," was coined by Dutch settlers in the Cape region. The conditions there compare to California chaparral, or to the Mediterranean coast south of France, or to the kula (upper) slopes of Maui. These proteas can take coolness, wind, or even drought—but they can't take freezes. If your own garden offers similar conditions, you might find great satisfaction in growing this hardy shrub or any of its kin. King protea need well-drained soil that's slightly acidic (pH 5.0 to 5.5). And they need fresh air. They are bug-resistant by nature but prone to fungus problems. Plant them well away from any humid pockets, and water them from below, not by overhead sprinkling. Anyplace you would grow roses should do for the king protea. If frost threatens, put a box over the plant. As plants grow older and woodier, they become more tolerant of cold snaps. For the largest possible flowers, disbud all but one bud from each stem. Prune freely after the plant finishes blooming. Buy a big, big vase. |
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