in Spring, from August to November, with the peak in October. Pollination occurs through the visits of either rats, mice, birds or insects. The seeds are stored in the fruit after becoming ripe, and the fruit are themselves stored in the old, dried, fire-resistant inflorescences, which are persistently retained on the plant after senescence. The inflorescences open one to two years after flowering after fires have passed through the land. When released from their capsules, the seeds are eventually dispersed by means of the wind. Conservation Protea convexa was already assessed as 'rare' in 1980, a conservation status which was given again in 1996 by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) in the first Red List of South African Plants. It was considered rare and known from only a few populations in the 1990s. In their 2006 assessment for the Red List, SANBI considered the conservation status to be 'critically endangered', this was repeated again in the 2009 assessment. The plant is mostly thought to be threatened by the expansion of rooibos tea farms in its habitat, as well as the effects of climate change. It is susceptible to drought, plants can die in such circumstances. Other potential threats identified were invasive plants, natural disasters and pollution. In 2005 Bomhard et al. predicted, based on their reading of models projecting the effects of climate change, that more than 80% of the population of the time would be extirpated by 2020, which qualified the species for upgrading its conservation status from 'lower risk' to 'critically endangered'. In the 2006 assessment, SANBI, "based on the opinion of experts", moved up the date when the species would be reduced by more than 80% to 2025. The total population numbers were thought to be decreasing in 2006. References convexa Flora of South Africa