Flowers Deceptively Mimic Fungi

red and white plant with green stem and tree trunk

Biological Strategy

Aristolochia

UBC Botanical Garden

Image: Stefano / Flickr / Some rights reserved

Distribute Solids

Solids include resources such as food, seeds, spores, and leaves, which living systems must sometimes move to accomplish various activities such as pollinating, feeding their young, or building shelters. To effectively distribute solids, living systems must use strategies appropriate to the sizes and types of solids and the media in which they exist (air, water, or another medium). This may entail strategies beyond simply holding and carrying solids. For example, some seeds are carried by the wind to new locations for germination. Others–like the burdock plant’s hooked seeds–cling to animal fur to be transported.

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Flowering Plants

Clade Angiosperms (“receptacle seed”): Dandelions, oaks, grasses, cacti, apples

With 416 families containing some 300,000 known species, angiosperms are the most diverse group of plants, and they can be found around the globe in a wide variety of habitats. They are characterized by seeds that grow enclosed in ovaries, which are enclosed in flowers. The floral organs then develop into fruits of myriad kinds and dimensions, from simple seed casings on maples to elaborate fleshy growths like papayas. The oldest flower known from fossils, Montsechia vidalii, appeared during the Jurassic Period 130 million years ago. They are the primary food source for herbivorous animals, which in turn makes them the indirect food source for carnivores as well.

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Flowers of the Aristolochia arborea tree mimic fungi to trap unsuspecting pollinators

Aristolochia arborea is a small tree native to the moist mountainsides of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico. There are 500 or so species of Aristolochia, with most species either found in the tropics or subtropics. Only a few are shrub or tree-like. Aristolochia arborea is special because it produces flowers close to or directly on the forest floor. In addition, at the center of the flower is what appears to be a mushroom-shaped fungus-gnat blossom from the fungi family Marasimus.

This mimicry is a trick the flower uses to attract specific pollinators. In this case, Aristolochia arborea is trying to attract mushroom gnats, which lay their eggs on fungus-gnat blossoms. Aristolochia mimics the look and scent of the blossoms, and unsuspecting gnats land on the flower to lay their eggs. Hidden inside the Aristolochia flower is a trap similar to a pitcher plant. The surface of the flower is slippery, and gnats that land slide down the flower and get loaded with pollen. The gnat escapes, only to fall prey to another Aristolochia flower. Loaded with pollen, the gnat delivers the pollen to a new flower, helping to pollinate it and ensuring more Aristolochia flowers will grow.

Adapted from the UBC Botanical Garden “Botany Photo of the Day“