A genus of flowering plants in the caper family, commonly known as spider flowers because of their long, spidery stamens.
From Greek kleó (to close or shut), referring to how the flower's parts are arranged. The term has been applied to this plant genus since Linnaeus's botanical classification system, named for the characteristic appearance of the blooms.
Spider flowers are pollinated by long-tongued insects that can't be fooled—their extreme strangeness actually attracts the perfect pollinators, proving that 'weird' in nature is just another word for 'specialized.'
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