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June is National Pollinator Month! We often think only about the beneficial relationships of pollinators, which receive food while plants get their pollen transferred for reproduction. Evolution is an unthinking natural process that doesn’t care about fairness, though, which has led many species to evolve cheats or tricks — some downright amazing!
Several irises and orchids in Eurasia are pollinated only by the males of certain bee species. These bees normally take cover every night in small holes in the ground, so the flowers have evolved round, black blotches to trick the bees into sleeping there instead. Some species go a step further, shrinking their lower petals to resemble the fuzzy abdomens of female bees and convincing the males to try to mate with them! The bees get nothing from the plants in return — these flowers don’t even provide nectar as a consolation prize.
Native to Michigan, jack-in-the-pulpits are pollinated by fungus gnats lured into each funnel-like “pulpit,” a modified leaf called a spathe. The gnats fall down the slippery sides to the bottom, where each plant’s tiny flowers are hidden. The spathes of male jacks each have a small opening at the bottom that allows the gnats, now dusted with pollen, to easily escape. Some gnats then find their way to female jacks, falling for the same trick again. To make sure the gnats clamber around and effectively transfer the pollen, female spathes don’t have an exit hole, and many of their pollinators never escape!
Pollinators do their fair share of cheating as well. Many plants have tube-shaped flowers with nectar hidden deep inside, accessible only to moths and hummingbirds because of their long tongues. Bumblebees, although great pollinators of many other flowers, don’t have time for any of this coevolution nonsense and just chew their way through the bottom of the tubular flower, reaping the nectar reward but not providing pollination.
Of course, just because evolution doesn’t care about playing nice, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t! You can help protect pollinators by growing native plants. There are native plant sale events happening this year all across Oakland County.
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