Powerful Pollination

  

Pollination is when a new seed is made inside of a flower. Pollination partners work together to pollinate flowers. They work together like a honeybee and an apple tree. Did you know that pollinators don't try to collect the pollen on purpose?Most pollinators are attracted to a flower's nectar but, bees are an exception to the rule and take both pollen and nectar.

Bees collect pollen in their pollen baskets to make honey. All the food you eat like strawberries, blueberries and cranberries need to be pollinated. If pollination did not happen we wouldn't have all the food we eat. We also would not have milk or meat, because cows eat grass and hay, we also wouldn’t have chocolate, which is made from the cocoa bean. Those are only two of the things we wouldn’t have without pollination.  All of the food we eat depends on pollination.

 A flower must have a shape, color, and smell that appeals to its pollinator in order for pollination to happen. Most flowers give off a sweet smelling scent to attract their pollination partner, but one flower species smells like rotting meat to lure their partner...can you guess??? A fly!!!

In order for a seed to be formed a grain of pollen needs to get to an embryo, for example, a butterfly lands on a flower to get nectar and gets a light dusting of pollen. Next the butterfly lands on another flower of the same species and one of the grains of pollen gets on the stigma of that flower, after a while the pollen grows a little tube down to an embryo (also called the egg). The egg then gets fertilized and becomes a seed, but the only way a seed can be formed is with a pollen grain, getting on the stigma from the same type of flower as that the pollen grain came from.

We did an outside observation on drawing the parts of a flower. Here are a couple parts of the flower: ovary, style, stigma which all together is called the pistil. The pistil is the female parts.We also saw all of the male parts including the anther and filament, which together is called the stamen. Who knew how amazing flowers could be?!! Maybe the next time you are outside, you could try observing and identifying the reproductive parts of a flower!!!

Written by: David K, Jordan, Shaun, and AJ.