Dagger Flower Bud 2

This plant has a number of uses in my region. Dried stems are bundled together to make brooms and freshly cut ones are used to thread wasp ridden hermaphrodite figs on branches of female fig trees to pollinate them.
I for one love to use the long stems with the ball-like capitula as a cat toy

Closed inflorescence of Mantisalca salmantica.
Taken 2009/04/14 with my Canon PowerShot SX110 IS. Processed in Photoshop 7. Resized in Paintshop Pro 9.