|
Pollination |
| In order for plants (angiosperms) to efficently set seed, they frequently require the aid of insect or avian or mammalian pollinators. Some pollinators are drawn to plants by the presence of nectar that is secreted by the floral nectaries. |
|
|
|
Sometimes pollinators are drawn to plants by the presence of the pollen. These pollinators eat the pollen as a food source. Eventhough these insects consume the pollen, they are able to transfer some pollen from flower to flower thereby fulfilling the plant's grand scheme to use the insect to increase pollination. |
| Not only are honeybees efficient pollinators, but many other types of insects are also very efficient pollinators. Many species of moths, flies, butterflies, wasps, bees, and other species of insects all participate in the complex interaction with plants that increases the plants fecundity and at the same time benefits the insects as well. |
|
Green
bee on Helenium flexuosum |
|
If only a few pollen grains are distributed on the stigma, fruit may develop, rather than abort, but the fruit will tend to be small, and it is often deformed. In this case the mellon at left was poorly pollinated resulting is a misshapen fruit. This would clearly decrease marketability for fruits of this charcter. |
Poor
pollination of Cucumis melo|
Some plants, particularly among the grasses rely on wind for pollination rather than insects.
|
|
|
|
Wind pollination also occurs in the gymnosperms (cycads and conifers), which are less evolved than the angiosperms. They also rely on wind to carry pollen from the male flowers to the female cone, where seed development then occurs encased within the cone. |
|
|
Other Pollination links
|