page_title: Babiana ringens
hierarchical_section_title: Babiana ringens
caption_attribution_description: Babiana ringens flower, Cape Town near Koeberg
context_page_description: Babiana ringens, the rat's tail, is a flowering plant endemic to Cape Province of South Africa. The foliage is long and erect with an inflorescence consisting of a sterile main stalk adapted for ornithophily, pollination by birds. The plant bears bright red, tubular flowers on side branches close to the ground. It is a perennial that grows in nutrient-poor sandy soil and flowers during the winter rains.
  The main stalk acts as a perch for birds, enabling birds to land within reach of the plant's flowers. The adaptation of the stalk was first noticed by Rudolf Marloth The bird that is the main pollinator of the plant is the malachite sunbird. The male sunbird is twice as likely to perch on the stalk as the female and, on average, spends four times longer on a perch. The stalk does seem to play a role in pollination as plants without a stalk produced only half as many seeds and see less cross-pollination as plants with a stalk intact. Accessing the flower from the stalk results in pollen being dusted on the breast of the sunbirds, although the birds may also sit on the ground to access flowers that lack stalks.
context_section_description: Babiana ringens, the rat's tail, is a flowering plant endemic to Cape Province of South Africa. The foliage is long and erect with an inflorescence consisting of a sterile main stalk adapted for ornithophily, pollination by birds. The plant bears bright red, tubular flowers on side branches close to the ground.  It is a perennial that grows in nutrient-poor sandy soil and flowers during the winter rains.
  The main stalk acts as a perch for birds, enabling birds to land within reach of the plant's flowers. The adaptation of the stalk was first noticed by Rudolf Marloth  The bird that is the main pollinator of the plant is the malachite sunbird (Nectarinia famosa). The male sunbird is twice as likely to perch on the stalk as the female and, on average, spends four times longer on a perch. The stalk does seem to play a role in pollination as plants without a stalk produced only half as many seeds and see less cross-pollination as plants with a stalk intact. Accessing the flower from the stalk results in pollen being dusted on the breast of the sunbirds, although the birds may also sit on the ground to access flowers that lack stalks. It has been suggested that the evolution of the bare axis and the flowers being borne at the base may have been driven by selection through the action of grazing herbivores.
caption: Close view of the anthers with the stalk beside it.
exif: {"Image Tag 0x0001": "[48, 51, 49, 48]", "Image Tag 0x0002": "4536", "Image Tag 0x0003": "3256", "Image Tag 0x0004": "4", "Image Tag 0x0005": "8", "Image Tag 0x0006": "3244", "Image Tag 0x0007": "4328", "Image Tag 0x0008": "1", "Image Tag 0x0009": "3", "Image Tag 0x000A": "12", "Image Tag 0x000B": "34316", "Image Tag 0x000D": "1", "Image Tag 0x000E": "4095", "Image Tag 0x000F": "4095", "Image Tag 0x0010": "4095", "Image Tag 0x0017": "100", "Image Tag 0x0018": "0", "Image Tag 0x0019": "0", "Image Tag 0x001A": "0", "Image Tag 0x001B": "[3, 0, 100, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 200, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 144, 1, 4, 0, 4, 0, 4, 0]", "Image Tag 0x001C": "128", "Image Tag 0x001D": "128", "Image Tag 0x001E": "128", "Image Tag 0x0024": "316", "Image Tag 0x0025": "263", "Image Tag 0x0026": "355", "Image Tag 0x0027": "[7, 0, 9, 0, 51, 1, 0, 1, 88, 1, 10, 0, 77, 1, 0, 1, 65, 1, 11, 0, ... ]", "Image Tag 0x002D": "4", "Image Tag 0x002E": "[]", "Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-FZ100", "Image StripOffsets": "4294967295", "Image Orientation": "Rotated 90 CCW", "Image RowsPerStrip": "3256", "Image StripByteCounts": "0", "Image MinSampleValue": "742400", "Image MaxSampleValue": "[161, 15, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 252, 0, 0, 0, 140, 10, 0, 0, 212, 92, 134, 208]", "Image XResolution": "1", "Image YResolution": "[81, 65, 158, 142, 142, 8, 16, 0, 98, 7, 64, 0, 0, 85, 255, 31, 59, 255, 172, 4, ... ]", "Image ExifOffset": "710", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/100", "EXIF FNumber": "8", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2018:07:26 14:15:46", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2018:07:26 14:15:46", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "58/5", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera"}