Last meal for the Venus Flytrap
A California poppy Eschscholzia californica, blooms in the morning sunshine. Throwing off its tight fitting dunces cap the petals unfold to reveal aunique flower arrangement beneath.
Bees are attracted to the brightly coloured flowers. Male pollen grains dislodge as large lumbering insects crash onto wobbly landing pads. Female stigma are showered with yellow powdery grains. The process of fertilisation and seed production has started!
Deconstructing Eschscholzia Californica
Bees have small carrier bags attached to their rear legs that fill up with pollen. This pollen is transported back to the nest but some spillage is inevitable as the bee visits other poppy plants. Cross pollination occurs when genetic material from two different plants combine. The seeds they produce grow into plants that have characteristics of both varieties.
Californian Poppy Stamen and stigmatic projections.
Anthers on short filaments have split open to release pollen grains
Anthers are pollen production factories. When they are full to capacity they split open down lines of weakness (dehisce) spilling their load like grain from a ruptured sack..
The grains need moisture which they find on the surface of the female stigma. Once hydrated the tiny pollen tube stirs. It increases in length and pokes out of an opening in its yellow jacket. It grows along the surface of the stigma. before penetrating it. Once inside there is a long journey through plant tissue till it finds an ovary with eggs. The tube grows from its tip so the need to overcome frictional resistance with lubrication is unnecessary. The sperm cells, carried in the tip, are good to go when contact with an egg is made..
String like projections on top form the plant’s stigma, the sticky outer surface of the plant’s female reproductive system. Pollen grains attach to this like velcro.
The green section beneath is the ovary, already swelling as fertilised eggs begin growing into seeds.
A seed pod developing as stamen wilt.
A closer look at the stamen.
Each large anther has two lobes. look where the anther curls up at it’s tip.
They split open along lines of weakness littering the flower with pollen grains.
The stigmatic extensions are covered in pollen grains.
