POLLINATION

So one can ask how does pollen get from one flower get from one flower today another? The male pollen cannot move to the female part of a flower on its own, so wind and animals are used to carry it instead. All the colours, shapes, sizes and smells of flowers are their ways of making it easy for the wind or animals to pick up and carry the pollen to the right female flower part. Pollination is usually the unintended consequence of an animal’s activity on a flower. The Pollinator is often eating or collecting pollen for its protein and other nutritional characteristics like sipping nectar from the flower. During this act of pollinator pollen grains get attached to the animal’s body. When the animal visits another flower for the same reason, pollen can fall off onto the flower’s stigma and may result in successful reproduction of the flower. Flowers must rely on vectors to move pollen. These vectors can include wind, water, birds, insects, butterflies, bats, and other animals that visit flowers. We call animals or insects that transfer pollen from plant to plant “pollinators”. Flowers have male and female structures, and it is the process of  pollination that transfers pollen from the male part(androecium) to the female part(Gynoecium).