Kigelia africana hanging buds

Several buds apparently trying to point up in a dangling young Kigelia africana inflorescence are doomed to drop, once the dominant one among them is fertilised by a pollinator.

Opening at night and dropping the next day, pollinators dare not be dilatory in this mission. If they are and the flower dies empty-ovaried, the remaining buds will linger, racing each other for fruiting performer status. The likely winner will firstly be expected to come from among of the bigger, older ones at the lower end of the raceme (meaning hanging higher up in it, the structure being upside down). If not the second one, then the third will be tried and so on until producing the winning flower that succeeds in receiving pollen and delivering it to an ovum effectively.

This is such a key function that up to fifty buds may wait their turn in order to avoid failure by the inflorescence. And sometimes more than one fruit may be grown from it, when concurrent fertilisation occurs. The belt and braces technique was clearly functioning in nature long before the advent of trousers (Coates Palgrave, 2002; iNaturalist; https://pza.sanbi.org).