1.
Pollination syndrome
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These traits include flower shape, size, colour, odour, reward type and amount, nectar composition, timing of flowering, etc. For example, tubular red flowers with copious nectar often attract birds, foul smelling flowers attract carrion flies or beetles, the classical pollination syndromes as they are currently defined were developed in the 19th century by the Italian botanist Federico Delpino. These do not attract animal pollinators, nevertheless, they often have suites of shared traits. Flowers may be small and inconspicuous, as well as green and they produce enormous numbers of relatively small pollen grains. Their stigmas may be large and feathery to catch the pollen grains, anemophilous, or wind pollinated flowers, are usually small and inconspicuous, and do not possess a scent or produce nectar. The anthers may produce a number of pollen grains, while the stamens are generally long. Water-pollinated plants are aquatic and pollen is released into the water, water currents therefore act as a pollen vector in a similar way to wind currents. Their flowers tend to be small and inconspicuous with lots of pollen grains and large, however, this is relatively uncommon and most aquatic plants are insect-pollinated, with flowers that emerge into the air. Bee-pollinated flowers can be variable in their size, shape. They can be open and bowl-shaped or more complex and non-radially symmetric, as is the case with many peas, some bee flowers tend to be yellow or blue, often with ultraviolet nectar guides and scent. Nectar, pollen, or both are offered as rewards in varying amounts, the sugar in the nectar tends to be sucrose-dominated. A few bees collect oil from special glands on the flower, there are diverse types of bees, forming large groups that are quite distinctive in size, tongue length and behaviour, thus generalization about bees is difficult. Some plants can only be pollinated by bees because their anthers release pollen internally, bees are the only animals that perform this behaviour. Bumblebees sonicate, but honeybees do not, wasps are also responsible for the pollination of several plants species, being important pollen vectors, and in some cases, even more efficient pollinators than bees. Butterfly-pollinated flowers tend to be large and showy, pink or lavender in colour, frequently have a landing area, since butterflies do not digest pollen, more nectar is offered than pollen. The flowers have simple nectar guides with the usually hidden in narrow tubes or spurs. Among the more important moth pollinators are the hawk moths and their behaviour is similar to hummingbirds, they hover in front of flowers with rapid wingbeats. So moth-pollinated flowers tend to be white, night-opening, large and showy with tubular corollas, a lot of nectar is produced to fuel the high metabolic rates needed to power their flight
2.
Pine
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A pine is any conifer in the genus Pinus, /ˈpiːnuːs/, of the family Pinaceae. Pinus is the genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The Plant List compiled by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden accepts 126 species names of pines as current, together with 35 unresolved species, the modern English name pine derives from Latin pinus, which some have traced to the Indo-European base *pīt- ‘resin’. Before the 19th century, pines were often referred to as firs, the genus is divided into three subgenera, which can be distinguished by cone, seed, and leaf characters, Pinus subg. Pinus, the yellow, or hard pine group, generally harder wood. Ducampopinus, the foxtail or pinyon group Pinus subg, strobus, the white, or soft pine group, generally with softer wood and five needles per fascicle Most regions of the Northern Hemisphere host some native species of pines. One species crosses the equator in Sumatra to 2°S, in North America, various species occur in regions at latitudes from as far north as 66°N to as far south as 12°N. Various species have been introduced to temperate and subtropical regions of both hemispheres, where they are grown as timber or cultivated as ornamental plants in parks, a number of such introduced species have become invasive and threaten native ecosystems. Pine trees are evergreen, coniferous trees growing 3–80 m tall. The smallest are Siberian dwarf pine and Potosi pinyon, and the tallest is a 81.79 m tall ponderosa pine located in southern Oregons Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, the bark of most pines is thick and scaly, but some species have thin, flaky bark. The branches are produced in regular pseudo whorls, actually a very tight spiral, the spiral growth of branches, needles, and cone scales are arranged in Fibonacci number ratios. The new spring shoots are sometimes called candles, they are covered in brown or whitish bud scales and point upward at first, then turn green. These candles offer foresters a means to evaluate fertility of the soil, pines are long-lived, and typically reach ages of 100–1,000 years, some even more. The longest-lived is the Great Basin bristlecone pine, Pinus longaeva, one individual of this species, dubbed Methuselah, is one of the worlds oldest living organisms at around 4,600 years old. This tree can be found in the White Mountains of California, an older tree, now cut down, was dated at 4,900 years old. It was discovered in a grove beneath Wheeler Peak and it is now known as Prometheus after the Greek immortal, pines have four types of leaf, Seed leaves on seedlings, born in a whorl of 4–24. Juvenile leaves, which follow immediately on seedlings and young plants, 2–6 cm long, single, green or often blue-green and these are produced for six months to five years, rarely longer. Scale leaves, similar to bud scales, small, brown and non-photosynthetic, needles, the adult leaves, are green and bundled in clusters called fascicles
3.
Pollination
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Pollination is the process by which pollen is transferred to the female reproductive organs of a plant, thereby enabling fertilization to take place. Like all living organisms, seed plants have a major goal. The reproductive unit is the seed, and pollination is a step in the production of seeds in all spermatophytes. The process is different in angiosperms from what it is in gymnosperms. In angiosperms, after the grain has landed on the stigma. Sperm cells from the pollen grain then move along the tube, enter the egg cell through the micropyle and fertilise it. A successful angiosperm pollen grain containing the gametes is transported to the stigma. Its two gametes travel down the tube to where the containing the female gametes are held within the carpel. One nucleus fuses with the bodies to produce the endosperm tissues. In gymnosperms, the ovule is not contained in a carpel, details of the process vary according to the division of gymnosperms in question. Two main modes of fertilization are found in gymnosperms, the study of pollination brings together many disciplines, such as botany, horticulture, entomology, and ecology. The pollination process as an interaction between flower and pollen vector was first addressed in the 18th century by Christian Konrad Sprengel and it is important in horticulture and agriculture, because fruiting is dependent on fertilization, the result of pollination. The study of pollination by insects is known as anthecology, pollen germination has three stages, hydration, activation and pollen tube emergence. The pollen grain is severely dehydrated so that its mass is reduced enabling it to be easily transported from flower to flower. Germination only takes place after rehydration, ensuring that premature germination does not take place in the anther, hydration allows the plasma membrane of the pollen grain to reform into its normal bilayer organization providing an effective osmotic membrane. Activation involves the development of actin filaments throughout the cytoplasm of the cell, hydration and activation continue as the pollen tube begins to grow. In conifers, the structures are borne on cones. The cones are either pollen cones or ovulate cones, but some species are monoecious, a pollen cone contains hundreds of microsporangia carried on reproductive structures called sporophylls
4.
Wind
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Wind is the flow of gases on a large scale. On the surface of the Earth, wind consists of the movement of air. Winds are commonly classified by their scale, their speed, the types of forces that cause them, the regions in which they occur. The strongest observed winds on a planet in the Solar System occur on Neptune, Winds have various aspects, an important one being its velocity, another the density of the gas involved, another its energy content or wind energy. In meteorology, winds are referred to according to their strength. Short bursts of high speed wind are termed gusts, strong winds of intermediate duration are termed squalls. Long-duration winds have various names associated with their strength, such as breeze, gale, storm. The two main causes of large-scale atmospheric circulation are the differential heating between the equator and the poles, and the rotation of the planet, within the tropics, thermal low circulations over terrain and high plateaus can drive monsoon circulations. In coastal areas the sea breeze/land breeze cycle can define local winds, in areas that have variable terrain, mountain, Wind powers the voyages of sailing ships across Earths oceans. Hot air balloons use the wind to take trips, and powered flight uses it to increase lift. Areas of wind caused by various weather phenomena can lead to dangerous situations for aircraft. When winds become strong, trees and man-made structures are damaged or destroyed, Winds can shape landforms, via a variety of aeolian processes such as the formation of fertile soils, such as loess, and by erosion. Wind also affects the spread of wildfires, Winds can disperse seeds from various plants, enabling the survival and dispersal of those plant species, as well as flying insect populations. When combined with temperatures, wind has a negative impact on livestock. Wind affects animals food stores, as well as their hunting, Wind is caused by differences in the atmospheric pressure. When a difference in atmospheric pressure exists, air moves from the higher to the pressure area. On a rotating planet, air will also be deflected by the Coriolis effect, globally, the two major driving factors of large-scale wind patterns are the differential heating between the equator and the poles and the rotation of the planet. Outside the tropics and aloft from frictional effects of the surface, near the Earths surface, friction causes the wind to be slower than it would be otherwise
5.
Poales
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The Poales are a large order of flowering plants in the monocotyledons, and includes families of plants such as the grasses, bromeliads, and sedges. Sixteen plant families are recognized by botanists to be part of Poales. The flowers are small, enclosed by bracts, and arranged in inflorescences. The flowers of species are wind pollinated, the seeds usually contain starch. It did not include the Bromeliaceae and Mayaceae, but had the additional families Prioniaceae, Sparganiaceae, the morphology-based Cronquist system did not include an order named Poales, assigning these families to the orders Bromeliales, Cyperales, Hydatellales, Juncales, Restionales and Typhales. The earliest known fossils include pollen and fruits, major lineages within the Poales have been referred to as bromeliad, cyperid, xyrid, graminid, and restiid clades. A phylogenetic analysis resolved most relationships within the order but found support for the monophyly of the cyperid clade. The relationship between Centrolepidaceae and Restoniaceae within the clade remains unclear, the first may actually be embedded in the latter. Within the order, by far the most important family economically is the family of grasses, which includes barley, maize, millet, rice, many Bromeliaceae are used as ornamental plants. Bremer, K. Gondwanan Evolution of the Grass Alliance of Families, judd, W. S. C. S. Campbell, E. A. Kellogg, P. F. Stevens, M. J. Donoghue. Plant Systematics, A Phylogenetic Approach, 2nd edition, linder, H. Peter, Rudall, Paula J. Evolutionary History of the Poales. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, flora of the Southeastern United States,48
6.
Poaceae
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Poaceae or Gramineae is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants known as grasses. Poaceae includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and cultivated lawns, Grasses have stems that are hollow except at the nodes and narrow alternate leaves borne in two ranks. The lower part of each leaf encloses the stem, forming a leaf-sheath, with ca 780 genera and around 12,000 species, Poaceae are the fifth-largest plant family, following the Asteraceae, Orchidaceae, Fabaceae and Rubiaceae. Grasslands such as savannah and prairie grasses are dominant are estimated to constitute 40. 5% of the land area of the Earth, excluding Greenland. Grasses are also an important part of the vegetation in many habitats, including wetlands, forests. Though commonly called grasses, seagrasses, rushes, and sedges fall outside this family, the rushes and sedges are related to the Poaceae, being members of the order Poales, but the seagrasses are members of order Alismatales. The name Poaceae was given by John Hendley Barnhart in 1895, based on the tribe Poeae described in 1814 by Robert Brown, the term is derived from the Ancient Greek πόα. Grasses include some of the most versatile plant life-forms, a cladogram shows subfamilies and approximate species numbers in brackets, Before 2005, fossil findings indicated that grasses evolved around 55 million years ago. Recent findings of grass-like phytoliths in Cretaceous dinosaur coprolites have pushed this back to 66 million years ago. In 2011, revised dating of the origins of the rice tribe Oryzeae suggested a date as early as 107 to 129 Mya, a multituberculate mammal with grass-eating adaptations seems to suggest that grasses were already around at 120 mya. This separation occurred within the short time span of about 4 million years. Grass leaves are always alternate and distichous, and have parallel veins. Each leaf is differentiated into a lower sheath hugging the stem, the leaf blades of many grasses are hardened with silica phytoliths, which discourage grazing animals, some, such as sword grass, are sharp enough to cut human skin. A membranous appendage or fringe of hairs called the ligule lies at the junction between sheath and blade, preventing water or insects from penetrating into the sheath, flowers of Poaceae are characteristically arranged in spikelets, each having one or more florets. The spikelets are further grouped into panicles or spikes, the part of the spikelet that bears the florets is called the rachilla. A spikelet consists of two bracts at the base, called glumes, followed by one or more florets, a floret consists of the flower surrounded by two bracts, one external—the lemma—and one internal—the palea. The flowers are usually hermaphroditic—maize being an important exception—and anemophilous or wind-pollinated, the perianth is reduced to two scales, called lodicules, that expand and contract to spread the lemma and palea, these are generally interpreted to be modified sepals. This complex structure can be seen in the image on the right, the fruit of grasses is a caryopsis, in which the seed coat is fused to the fruit wall
7.
Cyperaceae
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The Cyperaceae are a family of monocotyledonous graminoid flowering plants known as sedges, which superficially resemble grasses and rushes. The family is large, with some 5,500 known species described in about 90 genera and these species are widely distributed, with the centers of diversity for the group occurring in tropical Asia and tropical South America. While sedges may be growing in almost all environments, many are associated with wetlands. Ecological communities dominated by sedges are known as sedgelands, features distinguishing members of the sedge family from grasses or rushes are stems with triangular cross-sections and leaves that are spirally arranged in three ranks. Some well-known sedges include the chestnut and the papyrus sedge. This family also includes cotton-grass, spike-rush, sawgrass, nutsedge or nutgrass, and white star sedge
8.
Oak
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An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 600 extant species of oaks, the common name oak also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus, as well as in those of unrelated species such as Grevillea robusta and the Casuarinaceae. North America contains the largest number of oak species, with approximately 90 occurring in the United States, the second greatest center of oak diversity is China, which contains approximately 100 species. Oaks have spirally arranged leaves, with lobate margins in many species, also, the acorns contain tannic acid, as do the leaves, which helps to guard from fungi and insects. Many deciduous species are marcescent, not dropping dead leaves until spring, in spring, a single oak tree produces both male flowers and small female flowers. The fruit is a nut called an acorn, borne in a structure known as a cupule, each acorn contains one seed and takes 6–18 months to mature. The live oaks are distinguished for being evergreen, but are not actually a distinct group, the oak tree is a flowering plant. Oaks may be divided into two genera and a number of sections, The genus Quercus is divided into the following sections, Quercus, the white oaks of Europe, Asia and North America. Styles are short, acorns mature in 6 months and taste sweet or slightly bitter, the leaves mostly lack a bristle on their lobe tips, which are usually rounded. The type species is Quercus robur, Mesobalanus, Hungarian oak and its relatives of Europe and Asia. Styles long, acorns mature in about 6 months and taste bitter, the section Mesobalanus is closely related to section Quercus and sometimes included in it. Cerris, the Turkey oak and its relatives of Europe and Asia, styles long, acorn mature in 18 months and taste very bitter. The inside of the shell is hairless. Its leaves typically have sharp tips, with bristles at the lobe tip. Protobalanus, the live oak and its relatives, in southwest United States. Styles short, acorns mature in 18 months and taste very bitter, the inside of the acorn shell appears woolly. Leaves typically have sharp tips, with bristles at the lobe tip. Lobatae, the red oaks of North America, Central America, styles long, acorns mature in 18 months and taste very bitter
9.
Castanea sativa
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Castanea sativa, or sweet chestnut, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fagaceae, native to Europe and Asia Minor, and widely cultivated throughout the temperate world. A substantial, long-lived deciduous tree, it produces a seed, the chestnut. The tree is called the chestnut, or sweet chestnut to distinguish it from the horse chestnut Aesculus hippocastanum. Other common names include Spanish chestnut, Portuguese chestnut and marron, the Latin sativa means cultivated by humans. Some selected varieties are smaller and more compact in growth yielding earlier in life with different ripening time, the Marigoule, the Marisol, C. sativa attains a height of 20–35 m with a trunk often 2 m in diameter. The bark often has a pattern with deep furrows or fissures running spirally in both directions up the trunk. The oblong-lanceolate, boldly toothed leaves are 16–28 cm long and 5–9 cm broad, the flowers of both sexes are borne in 10–20 cm long, upright catkins, the male flowers in the upper part and female flowers in the lower part. In the northern hemisphere, they appear in late June to July, and by autumn, the female flowers eventually form a spiky sheath that deters predators from the seed. Some cultivars produce only one large nut per cupule, rather than the two to four nuts of edible, though smaller, size. The tree requires a climate and adequate moisture for good growth. Its year-growth is sensitive to spring and early autumn frosts. Under forest conditions, it will tolerate moderate shade well and it can live to more than 2,000 years of age in natural conditions, see the poetically-named hundred-horse chestnut in eastern Sicily for example. The leaves provide food for animals, including Lepidoptera such as the case-bearer moth Coleophora anatipennella. Sativa is found across the Mediterranean region, from the Caspian Sea to the Atlantic Ocean and it is thought to have survived in several refuges during the last ice age in southern Europe, Northeast Turkey and the Caucasus. It then spread North and West throughout mainland Europe, and is thought to have arrived in Italy from Asia Minor with the Greeks, the species is widely distributed throughout Southern Europe where it cover more than 1700.000 ha. It is often cultivated in coppices and orchards and more rarely found in forests stand. The species is cultivated for its edible seeds and for its wood. As early as Roman times, it was introduced into more northerly regions, today, centuries-old specimens may be found in Great Britain and the whole of central, western and southern Europe
10.
Alder
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Alder is the common name of a genus of flowering plants belonging to the birch family Betulaceae. The common name alder evolved from Old English alor, which in turn is derived from Proto-Germanic root aliso, the generic name Alnus is the equivalent Latin name. With a few exceptions, alders are deciduous, and the leaves are alternate, simple and these trees differ from the birches in that the female catkins are woody and do not disintegrate at maturity, opening to release the seeds in a similar manner to many conifer cones. The largest species are red alder on the west coast of North America, by contrast, the widespread Alnus viridis is rarely more than a 5-m-tall shrub. Alders are commonly found near streams, rivers, and wetlands, Alder leaves and sometimes catkins are used as food by numerous butterflies and moths. A. glutinosa and A. viridis are classed as environmental weeds in New Zealand, Alder leaves and especially the roots are important to the ecosystem because they enrich the soil with nitrogen and other nutrients. Alder is particularly noted for its important symbiotic relationship with Frankia alni and this bacterium is found in root nodules, which may be as large as a human fist, with many small lobes, and light brown in colour. The bacterium absorbs nitrogen from the air and makes it available to the tree, Alder, in turn, provides the bacterium with sugars, which it produces through photosynthesis. Because of its abundance, red alder delivers large amounts of nitrogen to enrich forest soils, red alder stands have been found to supply between 120 and 290 pounds of nitrogen per acre annually to the soil. From Alaska to Oregon, Sitka alder characteristically pioneer fresh, gravelly sites at the foot of retreating glaciers, alders are common among the first species to colonize disturbed areas from floods, windstorms, fires, landslides, etc. Alder groves themselves often serve as natural firebreaks since these trees are much less flammable than conifers. Their foliage and leaf litter does not carry a fire well, in addition, the light weight of alder seeds allows for easy dispersal by the wind. Although it outgrows coastal Douglas-fir for the first 25 years, it is shade intolerant. Red alder is the Pacific Northwests largest alder and the most plentiful, alders largely help create conditions favorable for giant conifers that replace them. Alder root nodules Alder roots are parasitized by northern groundcone, the catkins of some alder species have a degree of edibility, and may be rich in protein. Reported to have a bitter and unpleasant taste, they are useful for survival purposes. The wood of certain species is often used to smoke various food items such as coffee, salmon. Most of the pilings that form the foundation of Venice were made from alder trees, Alder bark contains the anti-inflammatory salicin, which is metabolized into salicylic acid in the body
11.
Nectar
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Common nectar-consuming pollinators include mosquitoes, hoverflies, wasps, bees, butterflies and moths, hummingbirds, and bats. M. scutellata and the honey bee. Nectar is an important item, the sugar source for honey. It is also useful in agriculture and horticulture because the adult stages of some predatory insects feed on nectar, for example, the social wasp species Apoica flavissima relies on nectar as a primary food source. In turn, these wasps then hunt agricultural pest insects as food for their young, for example, thread-waisted wasps are known for hunting caterpillars that are destructive to crops. Caterpillars however, do eventually become butterflies and moths, which are important pollinators. Nectar secretion increases as the flower is visited by pollinators, after pollination, the nectar is frequently reabsorbed into the plant. Nectar is derived from Greek nektar, the drink of the gods. The current meaning, sweet liquid in flowers, is first recorded in AD1600, floral nectaries are generally located at the base of the perianth, so pollinators are made to brush the flowers reproductive structures, the stamen and pistil, while accessing the nectar. A septal nectary is nectar-producing tissue that is found in the wall of a plant ovary, septal nectaries function as a way of attracting pollinators. Plants that rely on insects, birds, or bats for pollination often have septal nectaries, aside from attracting pollinators, septal nectaries have also been known to attract plant protectors. Some plants, like Ruellia radicans, have nectaries that continue to secrete nectar even after the petals have been shed and this attracts ants which will in turn protect the developing fruits of the plant from seed predators and herbivores in exchange for nectar. Extrafloral nectaries are nectar-secreting plant glands that develop outside of flowers and are not involved in pollination and they are highly diverse in form, location, size, and mechanism. They have been described in virtually all above-ground plant parts—including leaves, petioles, stipules, cotyledons, fruits and they range from single-celled trichomes to complex cup-like structures that may or may not be vascularized. In contrast to floral nectaries, nectar produced outside the flower generally have a defensive function, the nectar attracts predatory insects which will eat both the nectar and any plant-eating insects around, thus functioning as bodyguards. Foraging predatory insects show a preference for plants with extrafloral nectaries, particularly species of ants and wasps. Among passion flowers, for example, extrafloral nectaries prevent herbivores by attracting ants, in many carnivorous plants, extrafloral nectaries are also used to attract insect prey. Extrafloral nectaries were originally believed to simply be excretory in nature and their defensive functions were first recognized by the Italian botanist Federico Delpino in his important monograph Funzione mirmecofila nel regno vegetale
12.
Entomophily
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Entomophily or insect pollination is a form of pollination whereby pollen of plants, especially but not only of flowering plants, is distributed by insects. Insect pollinators such as bees have adaptations for their role, such as lapping or sucking mouthparts to take in nectar and this required the coevolution of insects and flowering plants in the development of pollination behaviour by the insects and pollination mechanisms by the flowers, benefiting both groups. Many plants, including flowering plants such as grasses, are pollinated by other mechanisms. Before that, insect involvement in pollination was limited to pollination assistants, insects which inadvertently carried the pollen between plants merely by their movements, the real relationship between plants and insects began in the Early Cretaceous, with beetle-pollinated gymnosperms. The morphology of the first fossil basal angiosperms is similar to plants that are also fertilised by beetles. It seems likely that beetles led the way in insect pollination, among the twelve living families of basal angiosperms, six are predominantly pollinated by flies, five by beetles and only one by bees. Nevertheless, traits such as sapromyophily have evolved independently in several unrelated angiosperm families, wind and water pollination require the production of vast quantities of pollen because of the chancy nature of its deposition. If they are not to be reliant on the wind or water and they particularly need pollinators to consistently choose flowers of the same species, so they have evolved different lures to encourage specific pollinators to maintain fidelity to the same species. The attractions offered are mainly nectar, pollen, fragrances and oils, the ideal pollinating insect is hairy, and spends time exploring the flower so that it comes into contact with the reproductive structures. Many insects are pollinators, particularly bees, Lepidoptera, wasps, flies, ants, on the other hand, some plants are generalists, being pollinated by insects in several orders. Entomophilous plant species have evolved mechanisms to make themselves more appealing to insects, e. g. brightly coloured or scented flowers, nectar, or appealing shapes. Pollen grains of plants are generally larger than the fine pollens of anemophilous plants. This is energetically costly, but in contrast, entomophilous plants have to bear the costs of producing nectar. Butterflies and moths have hairy bodies and long proboscides which can probe deep into tubular flowers, butterflies mostly fly by day and are particularly attracted to pink, mauve and purple flowers. The flowers are large and scented, and the stamens are so-positioned that pollen is deposited on the insects while they feed on the nectar. Moths are mostly nocturnal and are attracted by night-blooming plants, the flowers of these are often tubular, pale in colour and fragrant only at night. Hawkmoths tend to larger flowers and hover as they feed. Other moths land on the smaller flowers, which may be aggregated into flowerheads
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