Editorial Reviews
Book Description
One warm Spring day somewhere in Australia an innocent fly spies an open flower. The fly is not large, a few grams at most, and the fly is hungry for the nectar which the flower offers. This flower turns a pink face streaked with white and red to the sun while a small stem-like organ, covered with glistening hairs, holds the flowers aloft. The fly smells nectar, so it lands and unfurls its elegant probocis to take a drink. This curled organ acts like a soda straw built into the mouth of the fly, and the flower even provides the fly with a convenient perch on its petals. Perhaps the fly will have to carry some pollen to another flower, the usual price for such refreshment. Quickly the fly begins to drink, and then wham! In a tenth of a second or so, the triggerplant blossom has smashed its trigger, the fusion of its male and female reproductive parts, into the head and back of the fly. When it is a young, newly opened flower, the blossom of the triggerplant uses its male parts, its anthers, to coat flies with pollen. When it is an older flower, the triggerplant blossom drops its male parts and instead uses a sticky female stigma to remove the pollen of other triggerplant blossoms from visiting flies. This ensures that the second flower is pollinated, and that male and female come together to form seeds and thus a new generation.
Triggerplants are also found in India, China, Japan and Papua-New Guines but of the two hundred identified species, the great majority are found in Australia. They grow in the same poor soils favored by carnivorous plants, poor soils in which they have an advantage in that they can obtain nitrogen from their prey. It might be argued: what is the point for the triggerplant to to trap insects which are catching and spreading its pollen, but triggerplants cleverly trap only insects that are much to small to help with pollination.
This is the first comprehensive book on triggerplants. There is a chapter on triggerplants in the garden and landscape which includes how to grow them and how to obtain them, eg seed sources.
About the Author
Douglas W Darnowski has a doctorate in field plant biology from Cornell University and is now Assistant Professor of Biology at Washington College in Maryland, MD. He is a frequent visitor to Australia.
Triggerplants,Douglas W. Darnowski,Rosenberg Publishing,1877058033,Gardening,Gardening/Plants,General,Nature,Plants - General
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