We share our planet with an astonishing diversity of wildflowers that grow in every habitat imaginable, including deserts, mountains, forests, grasslands and even the sea. They co-exist in complex communities, communicate with one another, and have evolved complex and sometimes downright bizarre interactions with animals, as we’ll see below.
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They’re not only beautiful – they are essential to our existence. Wild plants energise the planet, configure the climate, and have been a source of food and medicine for people for thousands of years. Grains, vegetables and fruits have all been domesticated from wild plants and today plants are also used in biotechnology in ways we could never have imagined.
Wildflowers have evolved an arsenal of adaptations to cope with the challenges they face in nature – and that’s why they exist in such a bewildering diversity of forms. Here are a few that I find quietly astonishing.
Wildflowers: Discover the Science and Secrets Behind the World of Wildflowers
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10 incredible wildflowers
Makes wasps drunk
Broad-leaved helleborine (Epipactis helleborine)
Unlike most other orchids in the Northern Hemisphere which bloom in early summer, the helleborine sends up its spires of flowers in August: a time when the bees are calming down, but the wasps are gearing up. Apple orchards up and down the land are crawling with them. Helleborines attract wasps that inoculate the flowers’ nectar with micro-organisms they have picked up from the decaying fruit they also visit. These micro-organisms produce alcohol that subsequent visiting wasps may drink; drunk wasps are likely to spend longer on the flowers, and are less able to groom themselves of pollen, so they make more effective pollinators.
Makes pollinators think they have nectar (but they actually don't)
Common spotted orchid (Dactylorhiza fuchsii)
Pollination is the most important interaction between plants and animals, and it is an ancient bartering system: in return for pollinating a flower, an insect courier is rewarded – often with a sugary hit of nectar. But pollination can be costly for a plant - producing lavish rewards such as carbohydrate-rich nectar to ‘pay’ for its vital pollination services is energetically expensive. That’s why a little evolutionary cost-cutting has taken place. Many temperate terrestrial orchid species, including the common spotted orchid, produce colourful flowers that advertise nectar - but possess none: their insect visitors pick up and deliver pollen for no reward at all. Unwittingly, they bring about its pollination for free.
Steal nutrients from other plants
Cytinus (Cytinus)
Some plants are parasitic, meaning instead of manufacturing their own food by photosynthesis they steal their nutrients from other green plants. Cytinus, a wildflower from the Mediterranean has taken this to extremes – it actually grows inside another plant. It infects of the roots of cistus bushes under which you can sometimes find its curious flowers in spring. This mode of existence called endoparasitism means the plant lacks all trace of roots and is reduced to a network of filaments – called endophytes – that creep about the roots and stems of their hosts, cell by cell, unseen. It emerges only to flower and set seed.
Trap insects
Spotted arum (Arum dioscoridis)
Wildflowers not only dupe their pollinators, in some cases they imprison them. Aroids are widespread in woods and hedgerows in many parts of the world; the spotted arum grows in the eastern Mediterranean. Its flowering structure mimics the smell of manure. To perfect this mimicry, the spike-like structure, called a spadix, is even warm to the touch, just like fresh animal dung, which helps to disperse the odour. The midges it attracts are imprisoned in a floral chamber overnight by a barricade of spines, and become showered with pollen. The following day, the spines wither to release the insects, some of which may visit another arum, and bring about cross pollination.
Disguise themselves as stones
Living stones (Lithops)
Living stones, or pebble plants, are masters of camouflage in the deserts of southern Africa. They’re related to the popular garden plant, mesembryanthemums, and like them, it has showy flowers. But unlike other wildflowers, for most of the year, pebble plants are all but invisible: they are masters of camouflage. Hungry animals in the desert, such as tortoises, walk straight over the succulent, water-rich leaves, mistaking them for stones. Most of the plant remains underground, protected from the sun; the apex of each leaf is translucent and acts as a window, letting in light for photosynthesis.
Takes nutrients from fungus
Ghost pipe (Monotropa uniflora)
Among the most curious wildflowers of the coniferous woodlands in temperate parts of Asia, North America, and northern South America, is the ghost pipe, also known as ghost plant, or Indian pipe. It is distantly related to heathers, cranberries and rhododendrons. But unlike its leafy cousins, this plant is a mycoheterotroph, meaning that it is parasitic on a fungus. Because it is a parasite, it lacks leaves and chlorophyll, it therefore has no need of light and can grow deep in the shady forest. It forms curious, ghostly white stands of blossom on the shady forest floor.
Doesn't need light
Fairy Lantern (Thismia)
Like the ghost pipe, fairy lanterns are mycoheterotrophic, meaning they are parasitic on forest fungi; they too lack functional leaves, roots and chlorophyll, meaning they can exist deep on the dark forest floor. Fairy lanterns possess remarkable floral architectures, quite unlike those of other wildflowers. They come in an assortment of shapes, sizes, and colours, including oranges, yellows, and even sea-blues and greens. The flower structure is made up of a tube called a hypanthium that has six lobes (tepals). The stamens hang down from within the hypanthium. Most species of fairy lantern have only been described recently; further species probably lie in wait, undiscovered.
Tricks gnats to pollinate but gives them nothing in return
Dutchman’s pipe (Aristolochia arborea)
This peculiar wildflower grows in the rainforests of Central America. The plant has a shrubby, tree-like habit (hence the scientific epithet arborea, meaning ‘resembling a tree’). Its maroon-and-white, mottled blooms sprout directly from the base of the trunk in clusters on the rainforest floor, at a glance resembling a clump of mushrooms. In fact, each bloom has a specialized floral outgrowth in the centre that looks exactly like a purplish-brown toadstool. It emits an earthy, mushroom-like perfume that is attractive to fungus gnats that teem about the flowers and inadvertently bring about their cross pollination. Like other some other wildflowers featured, the pollinators of Dutchman’s pipes are unrewarded for their services.
Disguises itself as a bee
Bee orchid (Ophrys)
These ground-dwelling orchids are native to the stony pastures, crags, and hillsides of the Mediterranean Basin, although a few extend into Northern Europe. When the winter rain has passed, they send up curious spikes of furry, insect-like flowers that glisten under the warm spring sunshine. Not only do the various bee orchids’ flowers all look peculiarly like bees, but also each one smells like the female of a particular species of bee. The flowers sit and wait. Before long, amorous male bees flock to the flowers and attempt to mate with them in a buzzing frenzy. In so doing, they inadvertently pick up and deposit pollen – which is just what the plant needs them to do.
Takes nutrients from other plants
Desert hyacinth (Cistanche deserticola)
Desert hyacinths are widespread across the desolate sandy tracts and dunes of the Middle East, Asia, and North Africa. They produce long colourful spikes of blossom that contrast the bare ground from which they emerge after winter rainfall. Like some of the other wildflowers shown above, desert hyacinths are parasitic, so are devoid of leaves and green pigments (chlorophyll). There are thirty or so known species of desert hyacinth. Some are traded for herbal medicine, or have historical importance as food plants. The one shown has been used in China for more than 2,000 years and is still valued as a functional health food.
This is an extract from Wildflowers: Discover the Science and Secrets Behind the World of Wildflowers by Chris Thorogood, out now (DK, £25)
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