Power plant.Scientists have crowned the "speediest flowering plant flowering plant Any of the more than 250,000 species of angiosperms (division Magnoliophyta) having roots, stems, leaves, and well-developed conductive tissues (xylem and phloem). " on Earth. The bunchberry bunchberry: see dogwood. bunchberry Creeping perennial herbaceous plant (Cornus canadensis), also called dwarf cornel, of the dogwood family. dogwood dogwood or cornel (kôr`nəl), shrub or tree of the genus Cornus, chiefly of north temperate and tropical mountain regions, characteristically having an inconspicuous flower surrounded by large, showy bracts which flower blasts open in 0.5 milliseconds to fire pollen into the air. That's 300 times faster than a Venus flytrap's speedy snap. The dogwood's firepower comes from its unique structure, says Marta Laskowski, a biologist at Oberlin College Oberlin College, at Oberlin, Ohio; coeducational; opened 1833 as Oberlin Collegiate Institute, became Oberlin College in 1850. It includes a college of arts and sciences and a well-known conservatory of music. in Ohio. Clusters of cells on the flower hold its petals together. This pushes down on the stamens inside. These male reproductive parts become scrunched like springs and gain potential, or stored, energy, explains Laskowski. When a bee nudges the flower, the cells holding the petals separate and the flower pops open. The stamens' potential energy gets converted into moving, or kinetic, energy, which causes them to spring up and fling pollen into the air. Why the explosive act? "The insect gets plastered plas·tered adj. Slang Intoxicated; drunk. plastered Adjective Slang drunk Adj. 1. with pollen," says Laskowski. Then, the insect carries the pollen to other bunchberry flowers--an important step in keeping the plant species alive and blooming. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion