Pollination Biology with Nan Vance
For our March 1st meeting, we took a look at the wonderful insects who do such a valuable job pollinating plants. Nan Vance, a US Forest Service research plant physiologist who splits her time between Corvallis and Idaho, showed her photos of pollinators interacting with native Western wildflowers. She shared fascinating stories about the complicated connections between insects and flowers.
One species of Cypripedium (lady’s slipper) is pollinated by a wasp that is attracted not to the orchid but to the fungus gnats that are attracted to the flower. It parasitizes the gnats. Many pollination relationships are equally complex. I learned a lot about the large bumble bees (“bumbling Bombus“), smaller short-tongued bees, wasps, and flies. Flies are better able to handle cold temperatures and pollinate many of the early-blooming wildflowers. Yesterday, I saw lots of small flies on the snow queen (Synthyris reniformis) that are blooming right now as we are closing in on spring.
Thanks to Nan for teaching us about pollination and for encouraging us to look more carefully at the activity going on among the flowers we so enjoy. Nan brought several copies of a booklet on growing native plants from seed. For those who didn’t get one, there is one in our library now, or you can download it at http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/pnw_gtr823.pdf