Moth Pollinated Plants 5/15

Today Doug took me on a tour of moth pollinated plants in the UW greenhouse. Since moths are night pollinators, they like white flowers because they are easy for them to see at night. These flowers usually smell sweet. They also give off more of an odor at night because producing scent is costly for a plant. Plants only wants to produce scent when it is likely to get pollinated. Moths pollinate with a long straw like structure called a proboscis. When a moth is not pollinating their proboscis is curled up on their head. The flowers that moths pollinate have a structure that can fit the moths proboscis inside. All orchids that are moth pollinated have a long spur which is a tube like structure that hangs off of each flower. Each flower has one spur, and one pollinia. A pollinia is a pollen package that is connected to a viscid disk. Since most orchid flowers are perfect, they get pollinated by accident when the moth comes to suck up nectar out of the flowers spur. The moth breaks off the orchids pollinia, which gets stuck to the moth by the pollinia's sticky viscid disk. The moth then goes to pollinate a second flower, the pollinia gets scraped off onto the stigma, the male part of the flower, as the moth picks up another pollinia.

Not all moth pollinated plants have spurs, some have tube like structures instead like epidendrum falcotum. Among moth pollinated plants with spurs are the datura, and Darwin's orchid. Darwin's orchid got its name because Darwin hypothesized that the plant was moth pollinated because it had a spur. However, the giant moth that pollinated the plant was not found until after Darwin had died. The moth that pollinates Darwin's orchid is known as xanthopan morganii predicta and is native to Madagascar. Another interesting plant I learned about is both moth and hummingbird pollinated depending on color. The white flowers moths pollinate, while the crimson flowers are pollinated by hummingbirds. Research is currently undergo too figure out who pollinates the intermediate colored flower that is lite pink. This flower is called ipomopsis aggregata and is native to western North America.

Species List:
Ipomopsis aggregata
epidendrum falcotum
datura
Darwin's orchid
xanthopan morganii predicta

Posted on May 28, 2012 07:13 PM by lmcthe01