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The rat's tail (''Babiana ringens'') is a flowering plant endemic to Cape Province of South Africa.〔(Kew World Checklist of Selected Plant Families )〕 The foliage is long and erect with a sterile main stalk. The plant bears bright red, tubular flowers on side branches close to the ground. It grows in sandy soil.〔Goldblatt, P. & Manning, J.C. (2007). A revision of the southern African genus ''Babiana'', Iridaceae: Crocoideae. Strelitzia 18: 1-98. National Botanical Institute, Pretoria.〕 The main stalk acts as a perch for birds, enabling birds to land within reach of the plant's flowers. The bird that seems to be a pollinator of the plant is the malachite sunbird (''Nectarina famosa''). The male sunbird is twice as likely to perch on the stalk as the female and, on average, spends four times longer on a perch. The stalk does seem to play a role in pollination as plants without a stalk produced only half as many seeds and see less cross-pollination as plants with a stalk intact ;Subspecies〔 # ''Babiana ringens'' subsp. ''australis'' Goldblatt & J.C.Manning # ''Babiana ringens'' subsp. ''ringens'' ==References== 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Babiana ringens」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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