 It has a low rate of fruiting, with less than 1 % of flowers developing into follicles, and more than half of the inflorescences failing to form any follicles at all. Seed survival rates are similarly low. More than half of a plant's seed crop may be lost to the larvae of moths and weevils, which burrow into the cobs to eat the seeds and pupate in the follicles; and further seed losses are caused by granivorous birds such as cockatoos, which break off the cobs to eat both the seeds and the insect larvae.
