Could you please give me some information about the 'King Protea'? 10 points guaranteed.?

Question

Could you please give me information specifically about it's impact/adaptation and about the conservation. Thank you very much for your help.

Answer 1

The King protea was originally from the Cape Town area of South Africa. It is actually the national flower of South Africa. Now King proteas can be found all over the world where the atmosphere is dry and the soil has good drainage. It can even be found on Maui.

The flower of the king protea can get to be 12 inches across. On the outside it has many stiff, pointed, narrow bracts, or petals, that give it the appearance of a cup. The bottom half  

of the petals starts out cream colored or yellow, which turns into bright pink or velvet red on the top half. Inside the cup is a mass of white stamen about 1-2 inches long which all bend towards the center.

The leaves look like flat spoons, or paddles, which grow alternately along the several stems of the plant. They are thick and stiff and round in appearance. Their petioles (leaf stems) are quite long, about 1-2 inches.Protea can take moisture in through its leaves. This works well where it grows. There isn't much annual precipitation. Ocean fogs frequently blanket the area of the coastal chaparral and plants have adapted to getting their water through their leaves.

King protea are valued for their decorative qualities. They dry very well and are commonly used as focal pieces in flower arrangements. It is said that protea leaves are also used to make tea.

Proteas live in a fragile environment. Of the 370 protea species, about 120 of them are listed as endangered. There are very few wild proteas anymore, most of them are now cultivated in greenhouses or nurseries.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

The genus Protea was named in 1735 by Carolus Linnaeus after the Greek god Proteus who could change his form at will, because proteas have such different forms.

Proteas attracted the attention of botanists visiting the Cape of Good Hope in the 1600s. Many species were introduced to Europe in the 1700s, enjoying a unique popularity at the time amongst botanists.

The Proteaceae family to which Proteas belong is an ancient one. Its ancestors grew in Gondwanaland, 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 Gondwanaland 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 Mt. 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.



PROTEA NATURAL HISTORY

Proteas are assigned their own family, the Proteacea, based on their specialized flower structures. The name comes from the Greek god Proteus who brought fire to humans—perhaps because the flowers resemble flames (although there is some debate on this point). They were first collected in South Africa in 1605 by a Dutch botanist. Modern scientific names of the then known species were given by Linnaeus (the 'father' of taxonomy) in 1750. Today, they"re given various common names such as sugarbush, or shaving brush bush.

The protea family includes about 1,400 species, almost entirely restricted to the southern hemisphere. Some 360 species in 14 genera are found within southern-central Africa, but most are restricted to the Cape region of South Africa.

Proteas employ a variety of pollination strategies, 'hedging their bets' to maximize the chances of pollination, necessary to produce seed and so reproduce. Some species are pollinated by flower-visiting rodents and a number by nectar-feeding birds. Sugarbirds and sunbirds are the most important. Beetles also visit the flowers, such as the protea beetle Trichostetha fascicularis—as many as 2,000 insects have been found in a single flower head.

Despite the large flowers, some proteas do not produce many seeds. Usually less than a third of the flowers actually set seed. In species where male and female flowers occur on separate plants (dioecious), the fertility is much higher.

Fire is an important shaper of the African landscape, and proteas have evolved a number of adaptations to survive the frequent scouring. Some simply avoid areas where fire is prevalent and grow in rocky crags or creep through cracks or depressions in the ground. These are not truly resistant. Other species produce a thick bark which insulates the live cells and leaf buds in the stem. The fire does not penetrate the bark, and the plant regrows lost leaves. Another approach is to hide underground. The plant"s above-ground parts are burned away, but it has a tough root stock that quickly sprouts new stems after the fire passes. A number of species will not release seeds until exposed to fire, and hence depend on fire to reproduce.

Although proteas are well-adapted to their natural habitat, anumber of species are considered at risk of extinction and four species are believed to be extinct. In South Africa, a third of the species are considered threatened or at risk. The main problems are loss of habitat due to agriculture and non-native forestry, and over-collection. Disease is responsible for significant die-offs, especially when exotic pathogens (bacteria, fungi, etc.) are inadvertently tracked in by people.

While the future of cultivated proteas generally seems secure, it is evident that the group is under pressure. Conservationists will be working hard to maintain many of the wild species.



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