A colorful photostudy for You tonight featuring my Hibiscus Syriacus, commonly known as Althea Tree or Rose of Sharon Shrub. This bush is planted outside of my kitchen window, so I just open up the window to shoot the bees and soon arriving hummingbirds! This flower is identified as single purple with red throat. They only open for one day and close by evening. As there are many buds, I enjoy a long blooming season (till frost). Plants have one objective in their life: to make seed. The flower must be pollinated before it can make seeds. The bees carry pollen on their body from other flowers. As they walk around the inside of the flower, they leave pieces of pollen. This is a very important process for Humans because we eat the fruits of the plants. Your infostudy is on the Pollination Process. My bumblebees will show us how it is done! Enjoy!
Hibiscus syriacus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hibiscus syriacus is a species of flowering plant in the family Malvaceae, native to much of Asia (though not, as Linnaeusthought, Syria, in spite of the name he gave it).[1] Common names include Rose of Sharon (especially in North America),rose mallow (United Kingdom) and St Joseph's rod (Italy).
| Hibiscus syriacus | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Eudicots |
| (unranked): | Rosids |
| Order: | Malvales |
| Family: | Malvaceae |
| Genus: | Hibiscus |
| Species: | H. syriacus |
| Binomial name | |
| H. syriacus L. | |
| Synonyms | |
Althaea frutex Hort. ex Mill.
| |
Description[edit|edit source]
H. syriacus is a hardy deciduous shrub. It is upright and vase-shaped, reaching 2–4 m (7–13 ft) in height, bearing large trumpet-shaped dark pink flowers with prominent yellow-tipped white stamens.[2] Individual flowers are short-lived, lasting only a day. However, numerous buds are produced on the shrub's new growth, which provides prolific flowering over a long summer blooming period. Shoots make interesting indoor vase cuttings, as they stay green for a long time. In the vase some new flowers may open from the more mature buds. The species has naturalized very well in many suburban areas, and might even be termed slightly invasive, so frequently does it seed around.
Garden history[edit]
Hibiscus syriacus has been a garden shrub in Korea since time immemorial; its leaves were brewed for a tisane and its flowers are eaten. It was grown in Europe from the 16th century, though as late as 1629 John Parkinson thought it was tender and took great precautions with it, thinking it "would not suffer to be uncovered in the Winter time, or yet abroad in the Garden, but kept in a large pot or tubbe in the house or in a warme cellar, if you would have them to thrive."[3] By the end of the 17th century, some knew it to be hardy: Gibson, describing Lord Arlington's London house noted six large earthen pots coddling the "tree hollyhock", as he called it, "that grows well enough in the ground".[4]By the 18th century the shrub was common in English gardens and in the American colonies, known as Althea frutex and "Syrian ketmia"
Bumblebee
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Bombus | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Bombus terrestris | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Hymenoptera |
| Family: | Apidae |
| Subfamily: | Apinae |
| Tribe: | Bombini |
| Genus: | Bombus Latreille, 1802 |
| Diversity | |
| > 250 species and subspecies | |
Bumblebees and people[edit|edit source]
Bumblebees are important pollinators of both crops and wildflowers.
Comments by Charles Darwin[edit]
In his first (1859) edition of On the Origin of Species,[26] Charles Darwin wrote of "humble-bees" (a now-disused term for bumblebees; see the etymology section below in this article for more information) and their interactions with other species:
plants and animals, most remote in the scale of nature, are bound together by a web of complex relations. [...] I have [...] reason to believe that humble-bees are indispensable to the fertilisation of the heartsease (Viola tricolor), for other bees do not visit this flower. From experiments which I have tried, I have found that the visits of bees, if not indispensable, are at least highly beneficial to the fertilisation of our clovers; but humble-bees alone visit the common red clover (Trifolium pratense), as other bees cannot reach the nectar. Hence I have very little doubt, that if the whole genus of humble-bees became extinct or very rare in England, the heartsease and red clover would become very rare, or wholly disappear. The number of humble-bees in any district depends in a great degree on the number of field-mice, which destroy their combs and nests; and Mr. H. Newman, who has long attended to the habits of humble-bees, believes that 'more than two thirds of them are thus destroyed all over England.' Now the number of mice is largely dependent, as every one knows, on the number of cats; and Mr. Newman says, 'Near villages and small towns I have found the nests of humble-bees more numerous than elsewhere, which I attribute to the number of cats that destroy the mice.' Hence it is quite credible that the presence of a feline animal in large numbers in a district might determine, through the intervention first of mice and then of bees, the frequency of certain flowers in that district!
Agricultural use[edit]
Main article: List of crop plants pollinated by bees
Bumblebees are increasingly cultured for agricultural use as pollinators because they can pollinate plant species that other pollinators cannot by using a technique known as buzz pollination. For example, bumblebee colonies are often placed in greenhouse tomato production, because the frequency of buzzing that a bumblebee exhibits effectively releases tomato pollen.[27]
The agricultural use of bumblebees is limited to pollination. Because bumblebees do not overwinter the entire colony, they are not obliged to stockpile honey, and are therefore not useful as honey producers.
Pollination
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pollination is the process by which pollen is transferred in the reproduction of plants, thereby enabling fertilization andsexual reproduction.
In spite of a common perception that pollen grains are gametes, like the sperm cells of animals, this is incorrect; pollination is a phase in the alternation of generations. Each pollen grain is a male haploid plant, a gametophyte, adapted to being transported to the female gametophyte, where it can achieve fertilization by producing the male gamete (or gametes, in the process of double fertilization).
As such the Angiosperm successful pollen grain (gametophyte) containing the male gametes (sperm) gets transported to the stigma, where it germinates and its pollen tube grows down the style to the ovary. Its two gametes travel down the tube to where the gametophyte(s) containing the female gametes are held within the carpel. One nucleus fuses with the polar bodies to produce the endosperm tissues, and the other with the ovum to produce the embryo[1][2] Hence the term: "double fertilization".
In gymnosperms the ovule is not contained in a carpel, but exposed on the surface of a dedicated support organ such as the scale of a cone, so that the penetration of carpel tissue is unnecessary. Details of the process vary according to the division of Gymnosperms in question.
The receptive part of the carpel is called a stigma in the flowers of angiosperms. The receptive part of the gymnosperm ovule is called the micropyle. Pollination is a necessary step in the reproduction of flowering plants, resulting in the production of offspring that are genetically diverse.
The study of pollination brings together many disciplines, such as botany, horticulture, entomology, and ecology. The pollination process as an interaction between flower and vector was first addressed in the 18th century by Christian Konrad Sprengel. It is important in horticulture and agriculture, because fruiting is dependent on fertilisation, which is the result of pollination.
Types[edit]
Abiotic[edit|edit source]
Abiotic pollination refers to situations where pollination is mediated without the involvement of other organisms. Only 10% of flowering plants are pollinated without animal assistance. The most common form of abiotic pollination, anemophily, is pollination by wind. This form of pollination is predominant in grasses, most conifers, and many deciduous trees. Hydrophilyis pollination by water, and occurs in aquatic plants which release their pollen directly into the surrounding water. About 80% of all plant pollination is biotic. In gymnosperms, biotic pollination is generally incidental when it occurs, though some gymnosperms and their pollinators are mutually adapted for pollination. The best-known examples probably are members of the order Cycadales and associated species of beetles. Most conifera are anemophilous; they depend on wind pollination. Of the abiotically pollinated species, 98% are anemophilous and 2% hydrophilous, being pollinated by water.[citation needed]
Biotic[edit]
Main article: Pollinator
More commonly, the process of pollination requires pollinators: organisms that carry or move the pollen grains from theanther to the receptive part of the carpel or pistil. This is biotic pollination. The various flower traits (and combinations thereof) that differentially attract one type of pollinator or another are known as pollination syndromes. Roughly 200,000 varieties of animal pollinators are in the wild, most of which are insects.
Entomophily, pollination by insects, often occurs on plants that have developed colored petals and a strong scent to attract insects such as, bees, wasps and occasionally ants (Hymenoptera), beetles (Coleoptera), moths and butterflies (Lepidoptera), and flies (Diptera). The existence of insect pollination dates back to the dinosaur era.
In zoophily, pollination is performed by vertebrates such as birds and bats, particularly, hummingbirds, sunbirds,spiderhunters, honeyeaters, and fruit bats. Plants adapted to using bats or moths as pollinators typically have white petals and a strong scent, while plants that use birds as pollinators tend to develop red petals and rarely develop a scent (few birds rely on a sense of smell to find plant-based food).
Anthropophily pollination by humans, often artificial pollination used in hybridization techniques.
Insect pollinators such as honeybees (Apis mellifera),[3] bumblebees (Bombus terrestris),[4][5] and butterflies(Thymelicus flavus)[6] have been observed to engage in flower constancy, which means they are more likely to transfer pollen to other conspecific plants.[7][8] This can be beneficial for the pollinators, as flower constancy prevents the loss of pollen during interspecific flights and pollinators from clogging stigmas with pollen of other flower species. It also improves the probability that the pollinator will find productive flowers easily accessible and recognisable by familiar clues.[9]
Mechanics[edit]
Pollination can be accomplished by cross-pollination or by self-pollination :
- Cross-pollination, also called allogamy, occurs only when pollen is delivered to a flower from a different plant. Plants adapted to outcross or cross-pollinate often have taller stamens than carpels or use other mechanisms to better ensure the spread of pollen to other plants' flowers.
- Self-pollination occurs when pollen from one flower pollinates the same flower or other flowers of the same individual.[10] It is thought to have evolved under conditions when pollinators were not reliable vectors for pollen transport, and is most often seen in short-lived annual species and plants that colonize new locations.[11] Self-pollination may include autogamy, where pollen moves to the female part of the same flower; or geitonogamy, when pollen is transferred to another flower on the same plant. Plants adapted to self-fertilize often have similar stamen and carpel lengths. Plants that can pollinate themselves and produce viable offspring are called self-fertile. Plants that cannot fertilize themselves are called self-sterile, a condition which mandates cross pollination for the production of offspring.
- Cleistogamy: is self-pollination that occurs before the flower opens. The pollen is released from the anther within the flower or the pollen on the anther grows a tube down the style to the ovules. It is a type of sexual breeding, in contrast to asexual systems such as apomixis. Some cleistogamous flowers never open, in contrast to chasmogamousflowers that open and are then pollinated. Cleistogamous flowers by necessity are self-compatible or self-fertile plants.[12] Many plants are self-incompatible, and these two conditions are end points on a continuum.
Pollination also requires consideration of pollenizers. The terms "pollinator" and "pollenizer" are often confused: a pollinator is the agent that moves the pollen, whether it be bees, flies, bats, moths, or birds; a pollenizer is the plant that serves as the pollen source for other plants. Some plants are self-fertile or self-compatible and can pollinate themselves (e.g., they act as their own pollenizer). Other plants have chemical or physical barriers to self-pollination.
In agriculture and horticulture pollination management, a good pollenizer is a plant that provides compatible, viable and plentiful pollen and blooms at the same time as the plant that is to be pollinated or has pollen that can be stored and used when needed to pollinate the desired flowers. Hybridization is effective pollination between flowers of different species, or between different breeding lines or populations. see also Heterosis.
Peaches are considered self-fertile because a commercial crop can be produced without cross-pollination, though cross-pollination usually gives a better crop. Apples are considered self-incompatible, because a commercial crop must be cross-pollinated. Many commercial fruit tree varieties are grafted clones, genetically identical. An orchard block of apples of one variety is genetically a single plant. Many growers now consider this a mistake. One means of correcting this mistake is to graft a limb of an appropriate pollenizer (generally a variety of crabapple) every six trees or so.
Pollen vectors[edit|edit source]
Biotic pollen vectors are animals, usually insects, but also reptiles, birds, mammals, and sundry others, that routinely transport pollen and play a role in pollination. This is usually as a result of their activities when visiting plants for feeding, breeding or shelter. The pollen adheres to the vector's body parts such as face, legs, mouthparts, hair, feathers, and moist spots; depending on the particular vector. Such transport is vital to the pollination of many plant species.
Any kind of animal that often visits or encounters flowers is likely to be a pollen vector to some extent. For example, a crab spider that stops at one flower for a time and then moves on, might carry pollen incidentally, but most pollen vectors of significant interest are those that routinely visit the flowers for some functional activity. They might feed on pollen, or plant organs, or on plant secretions such as nectar, and carry out acts of pollination on the way. Many plants bear flowers that favour certain types of pollinator over all others. This need not always be an effective strategy, because some flowers that are of such a shape that they favour pollinators that pass by their anthers and stigmata on the way to the nectar, may get robbed by ants that are small enough to bypass the normal channels, or by short-tongued bees that bite through the bases of deep corolla tubes to extract nectar at the end opposite to the anthers and stigma. However, in general, plants that rely on pollen vectors tend to be adapted to their particular type of vector, for example day-pollinated species tend to be brightly coloured, but if they are pollinated largely by birds or specialist mammals, they tend to be larger and have larger nectar rewards than species that are strictly insect-pollinated. They also tend to spread their rewards over longer periods, having long flowering seasons; their specialist pollinators would be likely to starve if the pollination season were too short.[13]
As for the types of pollinators, reptile pollinators are known, but they form a minority in most ecological situations. They are most frequent and most ecologically significant in island systems, where insect and sometimes also bird populations may be unstable and less species-rich. Adaptation to a lack of animal food and of predation pressure, might therefore favour reptiles becoming more herbivorous and more inclined to feed on pollen and nectar.[14] Most species of lizards in the families that seem to be significant in pollination seem to carry pollen only incidentally, especially the larger species such as Varanidae andIguanidae, but especially several species of the Gekkonidae are active pollinators, and so is at least one species of the Lacertidae, Podarcis lilfordi, which pollinates various species, but in particular is the major pollinator of Euphorbia dendroideson various Mediterranean islands.[15]
Mammals are not generally thought of as pollinators, but some rodents, bats and marsupials are significant pollinators and some even specialise in such activities. In South Africa certain species of Protea (in particular Protea humiflora, P. amplexicaulis, P. subulifolia, P. decurrens and P. cordata) are adapted to pollination by rodents (particularly Cape Spiny Mouse, Acomys subspinosus)[16] and elephant shrews (Elephantulus species).[17] The flowers are borne near the ground, are yeasty smelling, not colourful, and sunbirds reject the nectar with its high xylose content. The mice apparently can digest the xylose and they eat large quantities of the pollen.[18] In Australia pollination by flying, gliding and earthbound mammals has been demonstrated.[19]
Examples of pollen vectors include many species of wasps, that transport pollen of many plant species, being potential or even efficient pollinators.[20]
Evolution of plant/pollinator interactions
The first fossil record for abiotic pollination is from fern-like plants in the late Carboniferous period. Gymnosperms show evidence for biotic pollination as early as theTriassic period. Many fossilized pollen grains show characteristics similar to the biotically dispersed pollen today. Furthermore, the gut contents, wing structures, and mouthpart morphologies of fossilized beetles and flies suggest that they acted as early pollinators. The association between beetles and angiosperms during the earlyCretaceous period led to parallel radiations of angiosperms and insects into the late Cretaceous. The evolution of nectaries in late Cretaceous flowers signals the beginning of the mutualism between hymenopterans and angiosperms.
...this is brendasue signing off from Rainbow Creek. See You next time! As You learn more about the importance of bees, please share with others. Also, discontinue use of Pesticides. Free the Bee!
Goodnight!
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