What does pollination mean

Pollination is important for humans. Learning about the life cycle of plants. Printable diagram We hope that adults will find our diagram useful for teaching children how pollination is crucial to life on Earth.

Teachers of Key Stage 2 pupils aged years should find it useful when teaching the basic elements of the life cycle of plants. Download the PDF. Shop for bee-related products. The fertilized flower later yields fruit and seeds. Do you know why some bees buzz?

Some plants like tomatoes and blueberries release their pollen through two tiny pores in each anther. Bees bite the anthers, hold tight, and buzz to shake the pollen out of the flowers. Bumblebees are living tuning forks, using a middle C tone to propel thousands of pollen grains from a flower in under a second.

Successful pollination requires year-round efforts. Plants evolved with differing flowering times that decrease competition among pollinators. Continuous blooms throughout the growing season provide pollinators with a constant food supply.

Spring: Pollinators need early blooming plants to provide food after hibernation or northern migrations. Bulbs, spring ephemerals and spring blooming fruit trees are visited during this time. Summer: Our gardens achieve their peak bloom when many pollinators reach peak populations. The long days of summer provide pollinators the maximum time to forage for nectar. Fall: Late blooming plants provide many pollinators with needed fuel before hibernation or for the southern migrations of pollinators like monarchs and hummingbirds.

Winter: Even when there appears to be little to no activity, pollinators are in the garden. Leave decaying plants alone—they may be sheltering pollinating insects as they overwinter. Do you know some butterflies travel thousands miles? At the beginning of each spring, monarch butterflies migrate north from Mexico, following the growth of milkweed. But what exactly is pollination? In the simplest terms, pollination is the process by which flowering plants reproduce.

To produce offspring, a plant must first be fertilised with pollen, which allows it to develop seeds that will grow into new plants. Flowers have both male and female parts. The male part is called a stamen and is a long slender stalk with pollen at the end. Several stamen are normally found in the middle of the flower.

The female part is called the stigma and sits at the very centre of the flower. It is the end of a tube, which runs down into the ovule, hidden inside the flower. This means the plant is fertilised when its own pollen finds its way from the stamens into the ovule.

Why does pollination matter to us? Worldwide, roughly 1, plants grown for food, beverages, fibers, spices, and medicines need to be pollinated by animals in order to produce the goods on which we depend. Foods and beverages produced with the help of pollinators include: apples, blueberries, chocolate, coffee, melons, peaches, potatoes, pumpkins, vanilla, almonds, and tequila.

Are pollinators in trouble? Worldwide there is disturbing evidence that pollinating animals have suffered from loss of habitat, chemical misuse, introduced and invasive plant and animal species, and diseases and parasites.