Protea Flowers

I photographed these exotic tropical flowers in the old New York City Flower District on 28th Street where a handful of wholesalers still remain... more

by Sarah Loft

Title

Protea Flowers

Artist

Sarah Loft

Medium

Photograph - Photograph With Added Texture

Description

I photographed these exotic tropical flowers in the old New York City Flower District on 28th Street where a handful of wholesalers still remain after most moved to Hunt's Point in the Bronx.

Per Wikipedia: Protea is both the botanical name and the English common name of a genus of South African flowering plants, sometimes also called sugarbushes (Afrikaans: suikerbos).

The genus Protea was named in 1735 by Carl Linnaeus after the Greek god Proteus, who could change his form at will, because they have such a wide variety of forms. Linnaeus's genus was formed by merging a number of genera previously published by Herman Boerhaave, although precisely which of Boerhaave's genera were included in Linnaeus's Protea varied with each of Linnaeus's publications.

he Proteaceae family to which proteas belong is an ancient one. Its ancestors grew in Gondwana, 300 million years ago. Proteaceae is divided into two subfamilies: the Proteoideae, best represented in southern Africa, and the Grevilleoideae, concentrated in Australia and South America and the other smaller segments of Gondwana that are now part of eastern Asia. Africa shares only one genus with Madagascar, whereas South America and Australia share many common genera- this indicates they separated from Africa before they separated from each other.

Most protea occur south of the Limpopo River. However, Protea kilimanjaro is found in the chaparral zone of Mount Kenya National Park. 92% of the species occur only in the Cape Floristic Region, a narrow belt of mountainous coastal land from Clanwilliam to Grahamstown, South Africa. The extraordinary richness and diversity of species characteristic of the Cape Flora is thought to be caused in part by the diverse landscape where populations can become isolated from each other and in time develop into separate species.

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Featured in the Beautiful Flowers group, April 2015.

Featured in the Visions of Spring group, April 2015.

Featured in the Global Flowers Photography group, June 2019.

Featured in the Black Background and Color group, June 2019.

Uploaded

April 23rd, 2015