The plant may appear unremarkable, with succulent oblong-obovate leaves that look and feel waxy and a spreading habit that has neither the elegance of a bush or the majesty of a tree. The lower reaches of the stems are usually bare, giving the sea lettuce a sense of sparseness that fits its chosen habitat by exposed beaches and sandy dunes. But the small flowers offer an exquisite counterpoint to their bearer's ungainly robustness. A half-circle of undulated petals formed by a split tube spreads out as a dainty skirt that fails to hide the blossom's sexual style.
Bees are known to pollinate the family, although my duck has also observed sunbirds perusing the flowers. For some reason, many specimens encountered on local shores have blooms that are plain white. But this uncropped individual on Semakau, whose girth is constrained only by its location between a doomed reef in a wet cell and the heat of a pebbly road, has clearly read the books and bears petals lined with purple with no hint of shame or clue that such offensive exposures call for greater punity than assaults on the body non-politic.
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