Chalybanthus congoensisFoil-flash Bloom

Following flowering plants from morning to dusk, I found that the star-shaped bloom scarcely opened, the anthers pressed directly against the stigma. It is not built to wait for visiting insects, but behaves like a near-cleistogamous self-pollinating flower. By the next day, raindrops split the thin fruit wall, and dust-like seeds rode the surface film, darkening only along the margins of cracks. This explains why its colonies persist in narrow lines.

No remains are visible on the dry rock, yet a needle inserted into a fissure brought out pale green dormant buds enclosed in a mucilaginous sheath. Petrofissura should not be treated as a moss, but as a minute angiosperm with a liverwort-like habit. The discarded leaves and flower are short-lived working organs; the perennial body is only the growing point kept in the shade of stone. Against glare and evaporation, this is not extravagant retreat, but the only economy bare granite permits.

At the beginning of the rains, herders hurry their animals over the inselberg paths, yet they avoid surfaces where Petrofissura has just withdrawn. Wet granite is treacherous, and a hoof can strip seeds and dormant buds from the cracks together with the thin grit. The taboo against touching a “rock gone to sleep” is therefore not mere allegory. It serves the weather-bound life of the uplands, the safety of the path, and the practical preservation of the next colony.