Pollination Primer Flowers inspire people. From the tulipmania of 17th century Europe and obsessive orchid collecting two centuries later to the millions of avid gardeners around the world who now spend every moment of spare time tending their flowers. But while some of us live for flowers, they certainly don t exist for us. They exist to lure pollinators the bees, butterflies, flies, bats, birds and many other animals that facilitate sexual reproduction.
Flowers are the reproductive organs of a plant.
When the insect lands on the flower and searches for nectar and pollen to eat, tiny pollen pieces on the anther the male part of a flower stick to the body of the insect. When the insect goes to another flower, some of that pollen sticks to that flower s stigma the female part of the flower. That pollen then fertilizes the ovules which leads to seed production. The Real Purpose of Flowers Over the last 100 million years, flowers have evolved an extraordinary range of strategies to facilitate the work of pollinators, from color and scent to petal design and bloom time. Monkshoods are entirely dependent upon bumblebees for pollination.