23 Pollinators-Mid

Pollinators FOCUS Question How do plants attract pollinators?

What Is Pollination? Imagine a bee flying through a garden. It sees a flower. The bee lands to drink some sweet juice, or nectar. As it steps around the flower, sticky stuff gets on its legs and body. The bee flies to another flower to get more nectar. Some of the stuff on its feet attaches to this flower. This is the start of a new plant. The busy bee may fly all around the garden, picking up this "stuff" and bringing it to other flowers. It may not know it, but the bee is helping plants make more plants.

Animals such as bees help many plants make new plants through pollination (pawl-in-AY-shun). This process starts with a flower. Flowers have a male part called a stamen. It makes a sticky powder called pollen. Flowers also have a female part called a pistil. The top of the pistil is often sticky. Pollination happens when pollen is moved from the stamen to the pistil. Pollination may happen within one flower, in several flowers on the same plant, or in flowers of different plants. But pollination always happens in the same type of plant. Roses pollinate roses and tulips pollinate tulips. Some plants are pollinated when pollen is blown by the wind. Many other plants need animals to move pollen from flower to flower.

Look at Me! Think about a flower garden. It looks like a rainbow. There are red, blue, yellow, purple and white flowers. Why are flowers so colorful? The colors attract animal pollinators. Different animals are attracted to different colors. Many butterflies and birds are attracted to the color red. Bees are attracted to yellow, blue, and white flowers. Which colors attract animals at night? White or pale yellow are easier for animals to see in the dark.

Some flowers have colors that people cannot see. Bees see colors differently than we do. For example, red looks dull to a bee, but other colors look bright. Look at the chart of colors in the rainbow. To the right of visible light. is ultraviolet light. People cannot see ultraviolet light with their eyes, but bees can. Flowers that attract bees sometimes have "hot spots." These are patches of ultraviolet color. Hot spots tell bees that food is nearby.

What Is My Shape? Flowers that are shaped like bowls often attract beetles. The beetles need more space to crawl into the flower. Flowers that have wide petals often attract butterflies. Butterflies prefer to land while they drink nectar. The petals act as landing pads for the butterflies. Do You Know? Hummingbirds often sip nectar from narrow, tube-shaped flowers. The flower's shape makes the hummingbird touch the pollen and carry it away.