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
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