beetles, are thought to be responsible for decapitated and destroyed flower heads, at least in similar species, and often concentrate such heads in small piles. Birds are extremely infrequent visitors to rodent-pollinated proteas. Within the flower heads a large amount of insects can be encountered, especially beetles, ants and flies -these likely predate on the nectar and pollen although they likely also serve as much less effective incidental pollinators: in an experiment with similar species in which rodents were kept away from the flowers by wire mesh, which did let in insects, seed set was about half the normal amount. Honey bees are poor pollinators of this type of protea, although they usually harvest large amounts of nectar. The large scarab beetle Anisonyx ursus may on occasion occur in flower heads in large numbers. It is possible that some species of rodent-pollinated proteas make more or less use of bees and/or beetles as pollinators than do others. Individual plants take some fifteen years before their first flower head to appear, and afterwards flower only once every three years, until they reach eighteen to twenty years of age, after which they may begin to flower every year. Although large plants produce much more, on average a mature individual will only produce 1.17 flower heads a year. Because plants take so long to mature, and, like practically all plants, only a limited amount of seedlings survive, so it is estimated that at least six ripe seed heads (infructescences) are needed to replace a plant, and that thus on average an individual plant must reach an age of over two decades for the species to be able to sustain adequate recruitment. The fruit (an achene) is stored in the old, dried, fire-resistant, woody infructescence, which remains on the plant for many years. The seed is stored in a closed capsule, and is only released after a long interval, after the infructescence is opened by fires. These infructescences are hidden amongst the dense foliage when the plants are alive, but when this is burnt away, the infructescences open, and only then are the seeds freed. When released, the seeds are dispersed by being blown away by the winds to a new site potentially advantageous for germination. The seeds require a period of freezing temperatures to break dormancy. Most seeds germinate during the cold of the first winter after a fire, although some may do