by Tatyana Livshultz, Sonja Hochleitner, Elizabeth Lakata
Two groups of plants: orchids (Orchidaceae) and milkweeds (Apocynaceae) have evolved extreme floral forms that turn their clumsy animal partners into pollen-delivering virtuosos: pollen transfer efficiency of these flowers averages about 25%, a 1 in 4 chance of successful delivery rather than 1 in 100. How do orchids and milkweeds achieve such extreme efficiency?
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| The flowers of dogbane don’t look too unusual, but they command extraordinary performances from their pollinators, achieving unusually efficient pollen transfer. Photo: Tatyana Livshultz |
Most flowers disperse their pollen as
thousands or millions of microscopic grains. In contrast, individual orchid and
milkweed pollen grains are packaged into a few much larger pollinia that are
firmly attached to visiting animals by specialized structures called
“translators”, reducing the likelihood of loss in transit.
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