Anise flowers heat up to attract insects
Could a “hot” flower attract pollinators by serving as a reward in a plant-pollinator mutualism? Many flowering plants produce nectar and pollen as rewards in exchange for pollination services by insects and other animals. Interestingly, however, a few plants have flowers that also produce heat metabolically — so what is the adaptive function of this flower heating?
Susanne Renner from the University of Munich, Germany and Shi-Xiao Luo from the South China Botanical Garden, along with collaborators from China and Taiwan, were interested in determining whether there was a connection between the heating of flowers and the pollination services of flies in an ancient Chinese family, Schisandraceae. Although this family is quite widespread, including Asia and the Americas, its center of diversity is in China, which is one reason Renner and colleagues chose to examine this question in two Chinese Illicium species. Their novel findings are published in the July issue of the American Journal of Botany.
“A few flowers, usually ones pollinated by beetles or flies, produce heat to help scent emission or to create especially attractive egg laying sites for their pollinators,” Renner commented. “Usually such heating occurs only during flowering, simultaneous with the release of pollen and stigma receptivity. We discovered that in an Asian Illicium species, flowers reach their highest temperatures during early fruit development, and experiments revealed that this is for the exclusive benefit of the pollinator’s larvae, which develop in the spent flowers.” Read more, When flowers turn up the heat
Read the paper:
Flower heating following anthesis and the evolution of gall midge pollination in Schisandraceae
Montgomery County Master Gardener Orientation
Would you like to become a Texas Master Gardener?
The Montgomery County Master Gardener Association will be holding their orientation for the 2011 Master Gardener Training.
The orientation is mandatory in order to take the training.
The orientation will be held Thursday, September 23, 2010, 10:00 a.m. at the Texas AgriLife Extension Service, Thomas R. LeRoy Education Center, 9020 FM 1484 (Airport Road) Conroe, TX 77303.
For more information call (936)539.7824 or visit our website www.mcmga.com
Corpse flower to bloom in Butterfly Center
The corpse flower is so rare that only 28 have ever been known to bloom in the United States. The 29th is poised to open any day now at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.
The lime-green bud, which resembles an oversized endive, was nearing 5 feet tall on Wednesday in the museum’s Cockrell Butterfly Center and has been growing about 4 inches a day. Cockrell director Nancy Greig says it could open Friday or by early next week. Once open, the corpse flower will last about two days.
The corpse flower is expected to bloom this weekend July 10-11, 2010 at the Houston Museum of Natural Science Butterfly Center
