Anderson Bruce, Cole William W, Barrett Spencer C H
School of Botany and Zoology, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Private Bag X01, Scottsville, Pietermaritzburg 3209, South Africa.
Nature. 2005 May 5;435(7038):41-2. doi: 10.1038/435041a.
Birds may hover over or perch on flowers when feeding on nectar, and this assists cross-pollination if they then visit other plants. Here we investigate the curious sterile inflorescence axis of the South African Cape endemic 'rat's tail' plant (Babiana ringens, Iridaceae), whose function--unlike in other bird-pollinated plants--is exclusively to provide a perch for foraging birds. We find that this structure promotes the plant's mating success by causing the malachite sunbird (Nectarinia famosa), its main pollinator, to adopt a position ideal for the cross-pollination of its unusual ground-level flowers.
鸟类在吸食花蜜时可能会在花朵上方盘旋或停歇在花朵上，如果它们随后拜访其他植物，这有助于异花授粉。在此，我们研究了南非开普敦特有的“鼠尾”植物（鸢尾科的环纹番红花）那奇特的不育花序轴，其功能——与其他鸟类授粉的植物不同——仅仅是为觅食的鸟类提供一个停歇处。我们发现，这种结构通过促使其主要传粉者铜色太阳鸟（Nectarinia famosa）采取一个理想位置，以对其不同寻常的地面花朵进行异花授粉，从而提高了该植物的交配成功率。
