Mighty oaks from little acorns grow.
Traditional adage
When we visit the Kingdom of Plants, one of the most glorious things to see are the flowers: sweet violets strewn on the ground, enormous white magnolia blossoms decking trees; even lovely yellow prickly pear cactus flowers adorn the desert. Each season brings new color, with the yellow daffodils of spring, blue hydrangeas of summer, orange mums of fall, and red poinsettias of winter. And each of these flowers brings its own delicious scent from the rose to the lily to the pawpaw tree…ugh, wait, that one actually smells awful! Did something die in that tree? Why would it smell like that? Why do any of these flowers smell at all?
Flowers smell because the purpose of flowers is to attract some animal to come and pollinate it (bring pollen – the tiny yellow bane of many noses each spring – from one flower to another). Some plants are pollinated by the wind, but most are pollinated by animals. When a flower is pollinated, it is able to make seeds that can grow into the next generation; flowers are essential for nearly every plant to reproduce. Let’s just stop for a minute to marvel at the intricacies of nature: in order for the Kingdom of Plants to thrive, it requires the Kingdom of Animals, and without the Kingdom of Plants, the Kingdom of Animals would starve. The Creator has woven a wonderful, interconnected tapestry of life.
Many plants are pollinated by bees, butterflies, or hummingbirds, which you will see on a summer’s day flitting from flower to flower. These animals are attracted by the flowers’ lovely smell, bright color, and sweet nectar (a sugary liquid that many animals drink and bees turn into honey). Other flowers are pollinated by bats, larger birds, or even small mammals, while the pawpaw tree (and a few others) are pollinated by flies. Do you know what flies love? Dead things. So you know what pawpaw flowers have to smell like in order to get the flies to come? Dead things. (Some farmers will even hang extra raw meat in the trees to attract more flies. Hey, sometimes you just have to go with what works.)
The most obvious part of the flower to us is the ring of petals around the outside that we appreciate for its beauty; animals appreciate it, too, as a runway, guiding the creature to its nectar treat…and the pollen. Inside of each flower, you will find two main parts: the stamen and the stigma, the male parts and the female. Around the center, standing like guards defending their queen, are several stamens. These tall stalks are topped with pollen-covered anthers; their job is to make sure the pollinators get as much pollen on them as possible in exchange for the nectar. Even taller than her subjects stands the stigma, waiting for the pollen to come from another flower. Once the pollen granule lands, it burrows down the stigma to the ovary where there are many ovules waiting to be fertilized into new seeds.
The seed, once formed, might be like the tiny red pips of a pomegranate or the mustard seed that grows to welcome the birds of the air or one of many in a dandelion puff or perhaps a giant coconut. No matter its shape and size, one thing all seeds want to do is spread! Moving away from their parents often gives the plants more room to grow, so the sail away on the breeze…or the ocean. They get buried by squirrels or stuck to your shorts and taken elsewhere to get planted. If the seed is inside of a fruit (such as an apple or a peach), it might even get eaten and then take the scenic trip through the digestive system, in the end being planted with the ready-made fertilizer of the animal’s excrement!
Once they are planted, they wait, sometimes for a long time (scientists have even been able to grow a date seed found at an archaeological site that was 2,000 years old!). And when the time is right (usually adding moisture and warmth do the trick), they start to germinate, or grow. A plant starts to grow down first, reaching its first tiny root into the rich soil, before lifting its head (seed and all) out into the open air towards the sky. As its roots begin to branch, its first leaf grows, one or two deceptive leaves that look very different from the leaves that come later. Finally, what is left of the seed drops away as the plant comes into its own, able to face the world alone, ready to grow, make its own flowers, and begin the cycle of life over again.