After it reaches the stigma, the pollen grain grows a tiny pollen tube down the style and into an egg-filled ovary. Eventually, the pollen and the egg form a seed. In North America, most of the pollinators are insects like bees, butterflies and beetles, or vertebrates like hummingbirds and bats. Honeybees have tiny baskets on their legs for carrying pollen back to the hive. When butterflies use their long proboscis, or nectar-gathering appendage, to sip nectar from tubular flowers, they get peppered involuntarily with pollen on the proboscis or the head.
Plants use various techniques to attract their particular animal partners.
Flowers are actually cleverly designed reproductive organs that incorporate all kinds of lures. Another type of lure is aroma. A flower's scent must appeal to its pollinator. The Queen Anne's lace places its nectar right at the base of its tiny flowers where pollinators with a short proboscis such as honeybees, ants, wasps, flies, and beetles can reach it when they crawl on the flower. On the other hand, bumblebees, butterflies, and moths have long proboscises, which enable them to reach nectar in less accessible places.