Protea

Protea is both the botanical name and the English common name of a genus of South African flowering plants, sometimes also called sugarbushes. In local tradition, the Protea flower represents change and hope.

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.

The family Proteaceae to which proteas belong is an ancient one among angiosperms. Evidence from pollen fossils suggest Proteaceae ancestors grew in Gondwana, in the Upper Cretaceous, 75-80 million years ago. The Proteaceae are 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.

Proteas are currently cultivated in over 20 countries. Cultivation is restricted to Mediterranean and sub tropical climates such as that of Madeira Island. Some Protea flower species, like the King Protea flower, are self-pollinating flowers. Other Protea species, however, like the Protea Cordata, Protea decurrens and the Protea scabra are self-incompatible and thus rely on cross-pollination for successive seed set. The main vectors responsible for the transfer of pollen in Protea cultivation are birds, insects and wind. There are some Protea species which exhibit both self-pollination as well as cross-pollination as a method of reproduction. Cross-pollination is however preferred as a method of reproduction because it provides genetic diversity in the population. When cultivating Proteas, breeders use hand pollination as a controlled method to transfer pollen from one flower to another. The following steps are used by breeders to perform hand pollination:

·         Cover the inflorescence, which contain only closed flowers, with a plastic bag

·         Once the first few flowers have opened, the majority has to be cut back to 10-20 flowers around the receptacle

·         After three days the pollen may be applied using a tooth pick. The flower should then again be covered with a plastic bag and marked with a tag containing information regarding the seed, the parent as well as the date of pollination. This step should be repeated until all the flowers are opened and pollinated.

·         The seed head should be harvested at nine to twelve months and dried at temperatures more or less at 40 °C to remove the seeds from the receptacle

·         The seeds can be germinated in autumn using hot water

·         The seeds should then be placed in a sterilized potting medium for germination.

Proteas usually flower during spring time. There are four main methods of selecting Protea flowers for further cultivation: Mass selection, Single plant clonal selection, Chance interspecific hybrid selection, Controlled-pollination interspecific hybrid selection. The four main methods for cultivating Protea plants are sexual reproduction (cultivation with seed). When Proteas are cultivated using seeds, the first step in the cultivation process is to disinfect the seeds by soaking in water maintained at 50 °C for 30 minutes. The germination of the seeds will occur over a period of 14 to 28 days. The germinating seeds should be planted in a medium in pots before the developing roots are 10mm long. Another method for cultivation is vegetative propagation (cultivation with cuttings), which is used to obtain a large protea population of the same genotype. This cultivation method allows for the cultivation of hybrid protea plants without the loss of their unique characteristics. The other two cultivation methods include grafting and budding and micropropagation, referring to cultivation with tissue culture.