Happening at the Crossroads
May 23, 2007
by Coggin Heeringa
The leaves have come out at Crossroads at Big Creek which means it is the beginning of the end for the spring wildflowers. Oh, we have a few more days to enjoy their delicate beauty and vivid colors, but soon it spring will be a memory.
It's no accident that May flowers come in myriad colors. Colors help attract insects. Having the objective of attracting insects may seem odd to us. But bees, domestic and wild, flies and even mosquitoes are very important to some flowers. In fact, without insects, many flowers would be extinct.
You see, if a plant is to make seeds, it must be pollinated. Pollen grains are the male reproductive parts of a plant. Many, many plants can pollinate themselves. Other plants are pollinated by the wind or even water currents We rarely notice the "flowers" of self and wind-pollinated plants. They have no need to be conspicuous. But the plants with colorful flowers usually need to have something carry the pollen from one blossom to another.
Flowers have colors because of pigments in the petals. Their colors are inherited from the parent plants. That's relatively easy to understand because humans and animals inherit their skin and eye and hair colors from their parents.
Some colors work better for flowers than other colors. Suppose a certain kind of plant must be pollinated by bees. It would sure help if the flower was a color that the bees could see. Researchers tell us that bees can't see red… that red just looks like grey or black to them. But bees can ultraviolet, which is beyond the visible spectrum for humans.
If flowers are yellow or purple or ultraviolet (which appears white to us) the bees find it easily. When they stop at the flower to gather nectar, they get the pollen all over them. Then they carry the pollen to the next flower. Not on purpose. It's sort of like a kid tracking in sand from the beach.
Speaking of annoying kids, and I was one, I used to really irritate my mother because I would eat all of one food on my plate and then all of the next. She thought I should take a bite of this and then a bite of that, and I still can't figure out why it matters. Curiously, bees gather nectar in much the same way I used to eat. They get started visiting one kind of flower and stick with that kind. This "flower constancy" works great for pollinating flowers because violet pollen gets to violets, orchid pollen gets to orchids ...you get the idea. The flowers which are the colors bees can see get pollinated. Pollinated flowers make seeds. The plants which grow from the seeds also will be colors bees can.
If bees can't see red, how are red flowers pollinated?
Well, though bees can't see red, but hummingbirds can. In fact, hummingbirds have tiny oil drops in their eyes that let them see red better than any other color. Hummingbirds pollinate red flowers. So the red flowers make seeds and have red offspring.
Some flowers look (and smell) like dead meat. They attract flies and beetles. These insects carry pollen too. If flowers have the right pigments to attract insects or hummingbirds, they will survive. If they are a hard-to-see color (or shape) they will die out.
This weekend, Crossroads at Big Creek will be participating in the Door County Festival of Nature and four of the programs will take place at the Collins Learning Center and the preserve. One of those programs will be on the Colors of Nature.
Also, on Sunday and Monday, the naturalist will celebrate the holiday weekend by leading several hikes featuring spring wildflowers. The Sunday hike will be at 3:00 and on Memorial Day, hikes will start at 10:30 and 2:30.
On Wednesday, May 30 at 7:00 The Door County Environmental Council will bring Verge Timme to the Crossroads. She will present a Lecture titled Sustainable Building . During this presentation she will discuss retrofitting of existing homes, roof water runoff, permeable surfaces, indoor environmental problems with PVC, and other issues of interest.
Crossroads at Big Creek is an historical and environmental learning preserve where learners of all ages can focus on science, history and the environment. Crossroads is located at the Intersection of Highway 42/57 and Michigan Street ( County TT ) in Sturgeon Bay.
