It Caught My Eye: The Passion Of The Flower
Posted By WILL CAMPBELL On April 11, 2008 @ 10:52 am In Nature, West Side, Wildlife | Comments Disabled
Amazing what you can see when you think outside the car (click to quadruplify):
[1]
There’s a bank of passion flower blooms off the Ballona Creek Bikeway east of Sepulveda Boulevard that have been calling to me and my camera for about two weeks, but only on this morning were the timing and weather conditions right to find them soaking up the full illumination of the morning sun. As an added serendipitous bonus I was getting a macro shot of this blossom when the Biggest Fucking Loudest Bumble Carpenter Bee Ever that I named Maverick, buzzed the tower that is my head without proper authorization and came in for a landing to add to the already copious amount of pollen it was already packing on its back.
See how that works? The bee bellies up to the bar for some nectar and in the process pollen from the overhanging anthers gets scrubbed onto its back. Then when the bee visit other flowers the particles have the opportunity to transfer from the bee to their stigmas and voila: cross-pollination! Ain’t nature amazing?
Related posts:
Article printed from Los Angeles Metblogs: http://la.metblogs.com
URL to article: http://la.metblogs.com/2008/04/11/it-caught-my-eye-the-passion-of-the-flower/
URLs in this post:
[1] Image: http://img.metblogs.com/la/files/2008/04/pfruit.jpg
[2] It Caught My Eye: Big Bird: http://la.metblogs.com/2009/02/12/it-caught-my-eye-big-bird/
[3] It Caught My Eye: Coocoo For Cooper’s Hawk: http://la.metblogs.com/2009/02/13/it-caught-my-eye-coocoo-for-coopers-hawk/
[4] It Caught My Eye: Á La Commode: http://la.metblogs.com/2009/04/16/it-caught-my-eye-a-la-commode/
[5] It Caught My Eye: Wiener: http://la.metblogs.com/2009/02/12/it-caught-my-eye-wiener/
[6] It Caught My Eye: Siht Happens, The Sequel: http://la.metblogs.com/2009/06/13/it-caught-my-eye-siht-happens-the-sequel/
Click here to print.