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A lot of us are becoming aware that pollinating insects need a bit of help, from providing hedging to slow down strong winds so insects can continue to fly around, through to giving them a larger variety of food in the form of fruiting trees, bushes, cultivated as well as wild flowers. In turn we hope the pollinators will survive and become stronger so they can continue to pollinate our crops and garden plants.
But did you know there are plants that have evolved to be pollinated in many different ways depending on their environments?
For cross-pollination to take place pollen has to be transferred from one plant to another, there are four ways this can be done:
Many insects carry out pollination including:
These insects carry out pollination because the plant rewards them with some juicy nectar to drink, or pollen to eat.
Flowers attract insects for pollination with some of the following characteristics:
Some plants don't have the above characteristics because they rely on the wind or soft breeze to carry their pollen to the next plant. These plants' flowers tend to be:
Examples of plants pollinated by the wind include:
Even birds, other animals and humans pollinate plants. The flowers are usually large compared to insect-pollinated flowers. They have:
The pollen will stick to birds feathers, animal fur and human clothing then get brushed off on the next plant where fertilisation will take place.
Plants pollinated by water are mainly aquatic or bog plants, pollination takes place as pollen is carried in the flow of the water.
We hope you found this article interesting and helpful. It's important to have as wide of variety of plants in your garden as possible, not only to help bees, butterflies, insects, birds and other wildlife but to help with soaking up some of the pollution within our environment.
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