I think I've found the general paradigm for edge-connected flower-faced kusudama like the one in your pic, in the new origami book I just bought: Marvellous Modular Origami by Meenakshi Mukerji. Haven't tried any of her models yet, but it looks as if these are constructed with one rectangular half-square per individual petal; thus, each dodecahedral ball would take... oog, 60 half-squares? though otoh that's the same amount of paper that Tomoko Fuse's stellated icosahedra require, and I survived assembling one of those.

I don't see any indication of how to form the little anther-like structures near the center, though.