Flowers Offer Oil Instead of Nectar

close up photo of yellow lady's purses in bloom

Biological Strategy

Slipperworts

UBC Botanical Garden

Image: T. MA / Flickr / CC BY NC - Creative Commons Attribution + Noncommercial

Distribute Liquids

Liquids include water, as well as body fluids such as blood, gastric juices, nutrient-laden liquids, and more. To survive, many living systems must move such liquids within themselves or between locations. Because of their properties, liquids tend to disperse unless they are confined in some way. To address this, living systems have strategies to confine fluids for transport, and to overcome barriers such as gravity, friction, and other forces. Some of these same barriers also provide opportunities. Trees and giraffes face the same challenge: how to move fluids (water and blood, respectively) upward against gravity. But their strategies are quite different. The tree moves water using capillary action and evaporation, possibly due to water’s properties of polarity and adhesion. The giraffe’s tight skin provides pressure to assist in blood circulation. and keep blood from pooling in the legs.

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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 Calceolaria biflora reward pollinators with oil instead of nectar

Species of Calceolaria are variously known as slipperworts, slipper flowers, pocketbook flowers, and lady’s purses. Calceolaria biflora (pictured above) is native to Chile and Argentina.

Most plants produce pollen or nectar to attract pollinators, such as bees, to land on their flowers. As the bee drinks the nectar, the pollen sticks to its body. The bee then transfers the pollen to another flower, helping to pollinate it and allowing the plant to make seeds that will grow into new plants. However, instead of offering nectar, most species of Calceolaria offer flower oil as a reward for pollination. It is thought that this oil is important creating water-resistant cell lining for larvae and food for larvae that’s necessary to help them grow.

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