Do Flowers Flirt? Do Flowers Dance? How Do Bees Choose A Flower?
The subject of this post is rather similar to that of our floral Viagra post which we wrote a few months ago. However, while the floral Viagra post focused on the surprising ability of Viagra to rejuvenate fresh cut flowers so that they stay in bloom for an extended period of time, this post is about common wild flowers shaking their thing in the wind, to attract the attention of bees. Strange but true!
A recent article on the BBC reported that researchers from the University of Aberystwyth, having studied hundreds of Sea Campions (common wild flowers from the Cardigan Bay area in Wales), discovered that said flowers sway in the breeze to attract pollinators. A Sea Campion is a pretty and delicate wild flower which grows in clumps on coastal cliffs in West Wales, mainly during the summer months, providing sustenance to moths, insects and bees (in return for pollination). The average Campion grows to about 12 inches in height, meaning it sways elegantly.
But when 300 of these flowers and their swaying were monitored, they shed new light on the lengths to which flowers go to attract the attention of their pollinating insect partners.
The experiments revealed that flowers mounted on long, thin stalks move around more in the wind. This acts as a powerful “come hither” signal to passing pollinators, allowing the plant to attract more insects than less mobile flowers growing atop short, thick stems. “We found wavy flowers are more visible to insects, and thus attract more pollinators and set more seeds,” said John Warren (the scientist behind the research).
The benefits of this impressive, pollination-clinching waving must be offset against the potentially catastrophic weakness inherent in developing a long stem; an excessively long stem stem could flop in all the excitement. Sea Campions must be asking themselves - “How much stem is too much stem but how little is not enough?”
Of course flowers have a variety of other means of attracting passing insects and bees to help their pollination process, including vibrant colours, fragrances, attractively shaped petals and nectar, many of which make them equally beguiling to us humans. It’s fascinating to learn that the armoury of the flower which, after all, has no muscles or any “real” muscular movement as we animals do, is nonetheless mastering rhythm and motion to beguile its hexapod suitors.
So let’s finish with the words of Dr Warren himself:
“Short, fat-stalked flowers don’t wobble enough and are less attractive to pollinators; yet very wobbly flowers are just too wobbly for the insects to handle, as the insects cannot land on them. Only flowers that wobble the right amount are successful in setting seeds.”
Perhaps flower Viagra might be the solution for those less wavy flowers after all!
Filed under: Flowers, General on May 12th, 2008
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