Researchers Astounded When They Finally Discover What Pollinates The “Hidden Flower”
How do you attract pollinators, like bees and butterflies, if you
have flowers? Almost 90% of flowering plants use bright colourful floral
displays to attract their pollinators. The flowers of Guthriea capensis are different. G. capensis
is the “Hidden Flower”. Just as their common name implies, the flowers
are hidden at ground level, beneath the leaves of the plant. Also like
the leaves, they are green. The flowers are, however, filled with nectar
and strongly scented, which suggests that some animal does manage to
find and pollinate the “Hidden Flowers”- but what is it?
Researchers from South Africa and the Netherlands, based at the
Pollination Ecology Research Lab at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and
the Afromontane Research Unit at the University of the Free State, think
they have the answer. They have published their discovery in the journal Ecology. The team found staked out a group of “Hidden Flowers” in the Maloti-Drakensberg World Heritage Site
in South Africa. After many fruitless hours of human observations,
cameras triggered by motion-detectors finally revealed the identity of a
shy and highly surprising pollinator. Drakensberg Crag Lizards pick up
pollen on their snouts when they visit the flowers to lap nectar.