Colpias mollis

Colpias mollis is the only species of its genus, a monotypic genus. The family is Scrophulariaceae, also known as the snapdragon, figwort or sutera family. The plant has alternate leaves, sometimes covered by soft hairs. The leaf margins are toothed.

The flowers appear on long, axillary stalks that are slender and hairy. The flowers are bell-shaped with five corolla lobes growing on two lips. Flower colour is often white, but may be pale yellow or occasionally orange. Flowering happens in winter and spring.

Inside the flower tube there are two narrow pouches or sacs lined with glandular oil-secreting outgrowths called trichomes that are sometimes hairs, but in this case glands.

This oil is offered by the plant to the females of a bee species called Rediviva albifasciata that live in more or less the same distribution area as does this plant. The bee scratches around in the flower with its feet and receives the oil, the standard pollinator’s reward. The bodies of both bee and flower have been adapted over a very long time to allow this exercise to be fulfilled successfully. The males bees patrol the flowers, contributing nothing to the plant, but waylay the females that visit (www.springerlink.com; www.plantzafrica.com).