Appreciating spring flowers
By By Gail Barton / horticulture columnist
March 9, 2003
We've had enough nice weather to give me spring fever. All over town the saucer magnolias are in full bloom.
My garden is full of daffodils, camellias, sweet daphne and Lenten rose. Many more plants have plump flower buds just waiting to break open.
Late winter and spring are prime times to observe flowers. Myriads of flowers, each more colorful and fragrant than the last, vie for the attention of an extremely busy group of pollinators such as bees, butterflies, moths and birds.
The pollinator's purpose is to be a sort of matchmaker carrying pollen that has the male sex cells to flowers with the tiny female ovules. Successful pollination results in seed and fruit production.
So the whole purpose of a flower is to attract a pollinator and then mature into fruit.
Winter flowers like daphne, Carolina jessamine, saucer magnolia and sweet olive are usually strongly scented. The fragrance helps attract the few insects that are out and about in late winter.
Our native paw-paw tree flowers in winter as well. Paw-paw blooms are bell-shaped and dark maroon similar to meat in color. They smell like rotten meat to attract blow flies.
Flowers have other tactics besides scent and color to attract pollinators. Some have landing platforms for bees and markings that point the way to enticing nectar. The nectar, of course, happens to be strategically located near the pollen.
Bees serve as pollinators for the majority of flowering plants. They are most attracted to yellow, blue or other brightly colored flowers that reflect ultra-violet light.
Bees pollinate all members of the rose family including apples, peaches, pears, plums, cherries and almost all other tree fruits. Without bees to carry pollen from one fruit tree to another, the fruit aisle at the grocery store would be almost empty.
Flowers with long narrow tubes have nectar that is not available to a bee. These are pollinated by butterflies. A butterfly can land on a flower and extend a long probing tongue to siphon nectar from the depths of a flower.
Butterflies are attracted to red and orange flowers like butterfly milkweed and lantana. Moths, the butterfly's nocturnal cousins, pollinate fragrant white night-blooming flowers like moon vine.
Large red scentless flowers (like tropical hibiscus) are usually pollinated by birds. In the tropics, parrots and many species of hummingbirds serve as pollinators.
Here in Meridian, mimosa trees, red salvia, cardinal flowers, pineapple sage and even trumpet creeper lure hummingbirds into the garden.
Bees, butterflies and birds perform the service of pollination for a food fee. Some pollinators eat the nutritious pollen. Others like butterflies live solely on nectar. Bees process the nectar into honey. Hummingbirds hover and seem to feed as if their very lives were at stake. The truth is that a hummingbird must feed every few minutes or die.
Not all flowers are pollinated by living creatures. Soon the oaks and many other trees will produce dull-colored flowers that look like tassels. The flowers are not colorful or fragrant because they are wind pollinated and don't have to lure pollinators.
The flower shape gives the pollen more mobility in the wind. These flowers are drab, but the wind-pollinated flowers of the grains like wheat and corn feed the world. Pine, which is also wind-pollinated, sheds golden pollen throughout the South onto everyone's car around mid-March.
Wind-pollinated plants don't mean to make such a mess. They just have to produce extra pollen since distribution is random and plenty is needed to reach the mark.
It's absolutely amazing to me that every acorn and pine cone begins its life as a flower that is dusted with pollen carried on the wind. However, I'm sometimes unappreciative when I'm picking up pine cones before mowing.
