Trappieskop Bonus #2: Red Beauties
This is the 2nd of three caches hidden to encourage geocachers and their hiking buddies to visit this easily accessible, modest but impressively rocky small peak, with its numerous interesting features, including amazing weathered rock shapes, ancient caves, wonderful fynbos, and stunning 360o views from the summit.
The cache, a small flip-topped dispensing pot, is hidden in a distinctive rock formation on the main side-trail heading up to Trappieskop.
Along the trails, at the right time of year (approx. Nov-Apr), and particularly as you reach the rockier parts of the route, you are sure to see (at least) two species of plants with beautiful bright red flowers, both dependent on highly specialised insects . . .
To Reach the Cache Location: park roadside @ or near S 34 07.565 E 18 26.729 before the corner at the start of Boyes Drive. Ascend the steps and follow Godfrey Rd left as far as the corner. Turn right up the firebreak and instead of following this around the corner, continue straight up along the trail past the location of GC96XCG Trappiesklp Bonus #1: Dassies' Dread! and on upwards and over the top of the nek to S 34 07.476 E 18 26.359 the junction with the trail heading due south towards Trappieskop. Follow this to the prominent large rocks – and cache location.
The first red beauty is the Karkar Reedpipe (Tritoniopsis antholyza), a member of the iris family and related to gladiolus. In Afrikaans it is called Karkablom which is onomatopoeic referring to the sound produced by its dry leaves rubbing together.
The entire genus with its 29 species is endemic to Cape Province - the name refers to the African genus Tritonia and is combined with the Greek word opsis (‘look-alike’).
It is an erect, unbranched, geophyte (perennial plant) which grows from a corm up to 90cm tall and is pollinated by the long-proboscid fly Prosoeca ganglbaueri (see here for an interesting illustrated article on this extraordinary creature, which is the exclusive pollinator of 20 fynbos plants with long flower tubes), 
Table Mountain Beauty or Mountain Pride butterfly (Aeropetes tulbaghia), and possibly sunbirds.
The flowers are a striking cluster of long tubular blooms varying from pink to reddish pink.
It grows on rocky sandstone slopes in the southwestern and southern Cape, flowering (best after fire!) from late summer – autumn (ie. Nov-Apr).
The second beauty is the Red Crassula (Crassula coccinea) aka Keiserkroon (Imperial crown) or Klipblom (Stone flower) in Afrikaans.
The name Crassula comes from Latin crassus meaning thick, referring to the fleshy leaves characteristic of plants of this genus. The species name coccinea means 'scarlet', from the Greek coccos - the berry of the scarlet oak used to make a red dye, cochineal.
It is small, robust, upright to sprawling succulent shrublet up to 60cm tall with a few stems branching from the base. As it ages the bottom of the stems turn brown and dry, with bright green, new leaves at the tips.
The succulent leaves are flat, oval shaped and crowded along the stems, overlapping each other. In mid-summer (Dec-Jan) to late summer (Mar) striking flowers form in a dense flat-topped head at the tip of the stems. The long tubular flowers are fragrant and brilliant red, especially in sunshine.
In his description of the plant published in Flora of South Africa (1913-1932) the botanist, Rudolph Marloth explains ‘. . . the dazzling brightness of the flower is principally due to the dome-shaped form of the epidermal cells, each acting like a combination of a convex lens with a concave reflector’.
It occurs naturally in the Western Cape, from the Cape Peninsula to Stilbaai, growing in fynbos on sandstone outcrops, in crevices or on rocky mountain slopes up to 800m.
Like the first beauty (and several other species with large red flowers, such as the Red Disa Disa uniflora and 
Cluster Disa Disa ferruginea, it is pollinated by the Aeropetes tulbaghia butterfly – a large butterfly with chocolate brown wings (it is the largest satyrine butterfly in southern Africa) which is uniquely attracted to the colour red. Like the fly above, with its long proboscis (tongue), it can reach the nectar deep down in the narrow tubular flowers.
All such red-flowered plants are adapted for pollination by this butterfly and so depend on it for their survival.