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Posts tagged “Pollen Sacs”

Common Milkweed Pollination

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The structure of the Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca ) flower is such that its pollen, produced in two saddlebag-like sacs with a black appendage joining them, snaps onto an insect’s leg when the two come in contact with each other. To assure that the chances of this are high, the pollen sacs (pollinia) hang inside a slit that is located between each of the five cups, or hoods, that contain nectar. An insect lands on the slippery flower, attracted by both the scent and availability of nectar, and inadvertently one or more of its six legs slips down between the hoods into a slit, where the pollinia automatically attach to the leg. The insect withdraws the leg upon leaving to find more milkweed nectar, and the attached pollinia eventually falls off onto another milkweed flower, pollinating it. Unfortunately, about 5% of milkweed flowers visited trap insects because they cannot extract their legs from the slit. It is not uncommon to see an insect dangling from a Common Milkweed flower – during a 30 minute visit to a milkweed patch recently I released 2 flies, 3 skippers (butterflies) and one honeybee that were caught, but hadn’t yet perished.

July 8, 2012 | Categories: Arthropods, Flowering Plants, Insects, Invertebrates, July, Moths, Pollination | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments