We are already making plans for the spring 2018 planting season. In addition to talking about trees, a lot of landowners wanted to talk about wildflowers for pollinators and wildflower plantings that would support pollinating insects.
As you probably already know, pollination helps plants form seeds and fruit so the plants can reproduce. There are estimated to be 300,000 species of flowering plants worldwide that need pollination.
Pollination can happen abiotically. This would be plants whe
re the wind blows the pollen around (anemophily) or water moves pollen (hydrophily). Pollination can also happen biotically – bees, wasps, butterflies, moths, flies, birds, bats, and beetles moving the pollen from plant to plant.
The actual process of pollination is when pollen is moved from the pistils (male part of flowers) to the staman (the female part of the flower).
The drawing is from the University of Illinois Extension’s website:
https://extension.illinois.edu/gpe/case1/c1facts2d.html