#geminatus

Piaranthus geminatus

“Piaranthus geminatus and a visitor caught in the act”

The hoods can act as foot holds in this case that direct the positioning of the legs over a potential corpusculum location while allowing the head of the fly to be positioned over the nectar ducts.

Piaranthus barrydalensis or geminatus ssp. barrydalensis

Photographed by: Franck Casterjon

Although this Piaranthus is said to fall within’ P. geminatus it is still disputed that the darker variation may need to be considered it’s own sp. Along with the corolla’s color being much more darker then what is usually displayed in the highly variable P. geminatus, we can also see that the outer corona is also more prominent and dark in color. The issue becomes a discussion based on the fact that both Piaranthus sp. are found in the same location as well as share many of the same characteristics and habit, however, with this in mind the issue of possible case of Hybrid speciation was noted. (Hybrid speciation is a concept, in short, that describes when two species have a zone of breeding overlap,(Hybridization zone), and produce a set of specific hybrids that would of had different reproductive base traits than the normal parent plants but are similar to the other hybrids when viewing their reproductive traits/ also have a similar set of parents; if these hybrids are isolated from breeding with parents, but create viable offspring themselves and if parent+hybrid show examples of hybrid inviability (common post zygotic barrier outlined by biological sp. concept) but hybrid+hybrid produce stable offspring we can assume this possible concept of speciation is occurring.) The two parent culprits are P. foetidus and obviously P. geminatus. The hybridization zone under observation occurs in Barrydale of the Little Karoo, Western Cape Province, South Africa.

We may see an end to this discussion in the coming years as we see this plant truly described as a divergence away from the macro observational world of morphology and cladistics to the genetic realms as well as the ultrastructure imo. 

http://www.asclepiad-exhibition.org/Notes_Philibertia-Piaranthus_b-g.htm >-  context in naming

Piaranthus geminatus

Piaranthus geminatus var. foetidus

ahh  om g ah im glad you liked it !!! that makes it all worth it 8)

 a nd i didnt mention it bc im a nervous dumb baby tbh ahah but you saw it eventually either way so its all good!! 

gos h if you want to draw gho2ty for me sometime again thatd be 100% okay but dont feel pressured into doing that or anything! ah  

quietly puts this here