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About Applegater. (Jacksonville, OR) 2008-current | View Entire Issue (July 1, 2019)
Applegater Summer 2019 9 DIRTY FINGERNAILS AND ALL Please pollinate me BY SIOUX ROGERS Remember when your mother or father sat you down for “that” talk about the birds and bees? They were really talking about pollination, right? People, animals, insects, plants—all living things need to be “pollinated” to continue the species. When we think of pollinators for plants, we usually think of bees first, but there are actually many other pollinators such as insects, birds, mammals, and, yes, even wind and rain. Pollinators transfer pollen from a stamen, the male portion of a flower, to a pistil, the egg-holding, female part. It is this process that starts the production of seeds. A pollinator—a bee, for example—is not purposely doing a good deed to the flower and certainly is not in love. Pollinators are self-serving and kiss the flower only to collect nectar for their food. Love has nothing to do with pollinating. Pollination is an accidental gift to the plant from the pollinator. For the plant, though, pollination is all about saving its DNA for the survival of its own species. Pollination is a symbiotic relationship between the pollinator and the plant. How does a pollinator choose whom to mess around with? Is it just random— whoever is handy? Or is it species specific? Just as evolution is not exactly random but rather functional, so is pollination. Form follows function. Pollinators are attracted to smells, colors, shapes, sweetness, or stink of the nectar. The shape of what is to be pollinated evolves with the pollinator. Which came first? The hummingbird’s long beak or the tubular flower? If you were a Since bees black-and-white mess around with ruffed lemur in at least 110 food Madagascar, you crops, which feed might be helping a variety of living pollinate over 130 beings—including different plant you—bees are species. These considered to be cute mammals the most diligent are known as “the and important of w o r l d ’s l a r g e s t all the accidental pollinators” due pollinators. to their symbiotic Bees and Lemurs are the world’s largest pollinators relationship with butterflies both (audubon.org/magazine). the traveler’s tree. like brightly They feed on the colored plants with palm-type flowers, a flat landing field. forcing the blooms However, bright open to access the colors in bee talk nectar, in the process do not include getting a dusting red, as bees can’t of pollen from the see red. It is the plant (indefenseof hummingbird who plants.com). is partial to reds, Beetles, often plus oranges and maligned, make up whites. Butterflies the largest group like a multitude of of pollinators— colors such as white, mainly because pink, purple, red, there are so many yellow, and orange. A sphinx moth hums as it hovers of them! Roughly Bees and (discoverlife.org). counting, there are butterflies are at least 240,000 particularly attracted to really sweet or very minty known flowering plants on this planet. aromas. Hummingbirds are partial to Of those, 88 percent are pollinated by tubular-shaped flowers because of the beetles. Beetles are not fussy eaters—they abundance of nectar pools in the tubular like flavors and smells ranging from spicy and sweet to ghastly fermented. Beetles bottom, reachable with its beak. are not particular Sioux Rogers either about whom they “date.” They will dance with a dainty goldenrod or mamba with a magnolia (ucanr. e d u / s i t e s / Po l l e n Na t i o n / Me e t _ The_Pollinators). Which pollinator is on the graveyard shift? Bats are on duty! They are extremely necessary, not only for eating pounds of night-flying insects but for pollinating over 300 different types of fruits and night-blooming flowers. They are partial to strong-smelling white flowers such as the night-blooming cereus. Why do bats “work” at night? Since they are nearly blind, they use echolocation to navigate and find food in the dark. Nighttime’s lighter air traffic and fewer predators mean a higher bat survival rate. Just to make these night flights tempting, night-blooming flowers often have the same alluring and romantic fragrance as the daytime Casa Blanca lily. Moths are another night-shift pollinator. They have the same landing requirements as the butterflies: a flat landing field. The sphinx moth is quite interesting in that, being small with a long snout, it resembles a hummingbird. The sphinx moth actually makes a humming sound as it hovers mid-air. Now I’m pondering: are we all just a pollination accident? Dirty fingernails and all, Sioux Rogers dirtyfingernails@fastmail.fm 541-890-9876 Please support our advertisers! Shop local; keep our dollars local. Locally made brews and live tunes! 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