Microloma tenuifolium red lips

The best red colouring on these Microloma tenuifolium flowers is reserved for the tips of their five petal lobes, gloss added generously. Lower down the corollas are duller, the flower colouring shifted to several pinks. The petal tips appear thickened, as if botox comes into play. And technically, these tip parts can be considered as lips!

That is how far the fantasy talk will go! For the nectar-rich flowers are adapted for sunbird pollination. Do not hold your breath for any kissing from those long, hard beaks! As it happens, the still closed Microloma flowers are mostly pierced from the side by the sunbirds accessing the nectar. The birds then accumulate the bags of pollen on their tongues. Some of it is presumably swallowed, the rest dropped off in newly targeted flowers later in their meal.

Do not be fooled by the short, straight, greyish leaves behind the flowers. Those belong to a host plant, as children or excited onlookers sometimes slip into photo or video background of news broadcasts.

There is a M. tenuifolium leaf part to the left in the photo, straight and rough-surfaced, its midrib sunken (Euston-Brown and Kruger, 2023; Curtis-Scott, et al, 2020; Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; iNaturalist; https://biogardens.org).