Flower power

Forest and Bird, Issue 292, 1 May 1999, Page 39

Flower power

lowers are a reproductive device exclusive to the flowering plants or Angiosperms. Emerging later than the Gymnosperms, the Angiosperms and their flowers represent a giant stride in evolution, made possible by exploiting the contemporary expansion of insect species in a relationship which is of benefit to them both. Flowers attract insects, offering colourful petals and scent, and edible nectar and pollen. When the insect moves on it may accidentally carry with it grains of pollen which brush off and fertilise the next flower it visits. Insects are much more discriminating than the wind, handsomely repaying the flowering plant for its investment in petals and nectar, and helping make the Angiosperms the dominant plant group in the world today. Just as cones evolved from a whorl of leaves, so too did the parts of a flower — sepals, petals, the male stamens and female pistils. Angiosperm means ‘enclosed seed’ and the angiosperms have their seeds enclosed in a leaf, modified and rolled into a tube. This becomes the juicy fruit surrounding the seeds, or the hard shell of the nuts we eat.