POLLINATION TOUR PLANTS FOR MAY-JUNE

GARDEN PLANT AND POLLINATOR SECTION SIERRA NEVADA Poppy (Eschscholzia californica)—many places in the Sierra SECTION (and Nevada, Sea Bluff, and Desert sections elsewhere in the Pollinated by BEES, including bumblebees. You can often hear and garden) see bumblebees do buzz pollination in poppies: they make a higher-pitched buzz inside the flowers as they vibrate their flight muscles without moving their wings. This shakes pollen onto their hairy bodies, where it sticks in the way that things stick by static electricity.

Bees can only see a few colors: blue, purple, yellow, and ultraviolet (we can’t see this color). But sometimes they can see other colors that have blue or yellow in them, like orange (poppies). Ask the students what colors you can mix to make orange.

FLOWER Flower dissesction activity: DISSECTION Pick a flower for each student or pair of students) and ACTIVITY yourself. Sit down on the lawn or other comfortable place with students. First have students look at and feel petals. Then have students gently pull off the petals and save them in a pile. Look at the stamens attached to the petals (on many other types of flowers, the stamens don’t come off wtih the petals, and on poppies, some stamens may still be attached to the central stem). Look at the stamens left on the central stem with their yellow- orange pollen, then gently pull them off, being careful not to pull off the stigma in the center. Look at the 3-branched stigma attached to the central stem. Explain how pollination is the transfer of pollen from the stamen to the stigma, and how that starts the process of seed formation that will eventually produce a new plant.

1

SIERRA NEVADA Western spice bush (Calycanthus occidentalis) SECTION Pollinated by BEETLES Have the students smell a flower and say what they think it smells like before you tell them the rest. Spicebush has an open flower form with the scent of fermenting fruit. Flower color is not important because beetles use their sense of smell to find flowers. Beetles are attracted to rotting things because they lay their eggs in them--their larvae eat the rotting things when they hatch.

GENERAL FEEDING: Beetles will eat their way through petals and other floral INFORMATION parts. They even defecate within flowers, earning them the nickname ABOUT BEETLES “mess and soil” pollinators.

SIERRA NEVADA Fremontia/flannelbush (Fremontodendron californicum ‘Margo’) SECTION on the left outside the door to Joe Dahl’s office in the Potting Shed/Lodge Pollinated by BEES: yellow flower color that bees can see, and sweet nectar inside the flower that they eat.

SIERRA NEVADA Monkeyflower (Mimulus sp.) outside Potting Shed/Lodge (and SECTION (and various other places in the garden) other places in the Many monkeyflowers are pollinated by BEES. garden) The stigma looks like a duck’s bill, with pollen-receptive surfaces on the inside. The stigma closes quickly after being touched a couple of times (e.g., as pollinator enters flower), this allows pollen from a different flower to be deposited on the stigma as the bee enters the flower, but prevents pollen from the same flower being deposited on the stigma as the bee comes out of the flower.

ACTIVITY: Have students touch the open stigma gently with a small stick STIGMA and watch it close. (Look at the flowers first to find those with RESPONSE open stigmas.)

SIERRA NEVADA Iris (Iris douglasiana and other species) SECTION Pollinated by BEES: Purple flower color attracts bees (some irises are yellow, which is another good color for bees to see). The lines on the petals show bees the way to get inside the flower, where the pollen and nectar are located. These lines are called nectar guides.

2

SEA BLUFF Lupine (Lupinus species) SECTION Pollinated by BEES (fragrant flower; upper (“banner”) petal changes color from white to pink, which is hard for bees to see, after pollination) ACTIVITY: Ask students to look at flowers to see which ones have been FLOWER COLOR pollinated (by the color of their upper (banner) petal AND POLLINATION

ACTIVITY: Weight of bee on lower petals (“keel”) pops out reproductive parts, FINDING THE which deposit and pick up pollen from the bee’s body REPRODUCTIVE Ask students to gently press down on keel to see how the stamens PARTS and stigma pop out

DESERT Prickly pear cactus (Opuntia) SECTION Pollinated by BEES Stamens move toward stigma when touched --tightly clustered stamens gets more pollen on the body of a pollinator that pushes its way to the center of the flower ACTIVITY: TOUCH STAMENS WITH This is for the docent, not the 1st graders to do (unless you have a STICK really calm and well-behaved group). While the students watch, use a small stick to gently touch the stamens and then see how they move to the center of the flower.

PRECAUTIONS Be careful that the students don’t get their eyes or other body parts WITH KIDS AND close to the spines! CACTI

3

DESERT SECTION Wooly blue curls (Trichostema lanatum)—might not have flowers in April Pollinated by HUMMINGBIRDS; anthers and stigma contact top of bird’s head Flower has long tube, bright color, no landing platform

ACTIVITY: While the other students watch, have one student try being a POLLINATION hummingbird by holding a pine needle or thin stick (the beak) SIMULATION WITH between his or her thumb and forefinger (the head), and stick PINE NEEDLE AND the beak into the flower to see where the anthers and stigma hit FINGERS the bird (on the top of the head). A hummingbird’s beak is about 3/4 of an inch long.

SENSES: Hummingbirds apparently have no sense of smell GENERAL HOW THEY EAT: INFORMATION Feed in many small meals, consuming many small insects (caught in flight 4

ABOUT usually by opening beak extra wide) and up to twelve times their HUMMINGBIRDS own body weight in nectar each day. That’s like a 1st grader eating eating 600 pounds of food a day! Spend an average of 10–15% of their time feeding and 75–80% sitting and digesting Because of their high metabolic rate, hummingbirds visit up to 1,000

flowers/day (feed every 10-15 minutes through the day)

Tongue is grooved in the shape of a "W" and forked at the end with tiny ACTIVITY: hairs on the tip. Nectar is pulled into the grooves in the tongue (not MOVING TONGUE sucked). Retracting tongue brings nectar into throat. Hummers LIKE A extend and retract their tongues 3 to 13 times persecond: Ask the HUMMINGBIRD students to try this!

FLYING: ACTIVITY: Wings can beat 70x/second: Try this! MOVING ARMS “Hummingbirds can remain still in space by moving their wings in a figure- LIKE A eight pattern (try this!), enabling them to remain stationary in the HUMMINGBIRD’S air, hovering in front of flowers as they feed on nectar. In fact, hummingbirds are more maneuverable than helicopters.” Try WINGS flapping in a figure 8. Hummingbird is the only bird able to fly backwards!

BUNCHGRASS Soap plant (Chloragalum pomeridianum)—flowers may not have MEADOW and formed yet in late April. elsewhere in the Pollinated by large bees--bumblebees, carpenter bees, & honeybees; Santa Lucia section wasps, other bees, hummingbirds, moths visit but are not of the garden effective pollinators White flowers (that are not fragrant) Flowers open in late afternoon There is only a small window of time in which the flowers of soap plant can be pollinated, since the flowers open for only a few hours on only one day. They open rapidly in the late afternoon, produce nectar, and fall apart some 6 to 8 hours later, whether pollination takes place or not.

5