Blowing in the Wind

There is one pollinator and seed-dispersal agent as old as the Earth itself.  It’s everywhere:  the wind.  My symbol for the wind at left can be added to the hundreds easily found on the internet.  You might draw your own. 

Uplifting, breath taking, breath giving.  Breath:  our first act in life, and our last.  Inspiring and expiring.  We take it for granted.

 

Wind pollinated plants are called anemophilous.  Anemo, meaning wind and philous, meaning loving.  I like to think of it as the wind helping the plants in their love making, as opposed to plants just loving the wind.  Wind pollinated plants include almost all the gymnosperms (pine, spruce, fir) and also many of the grasses, sedges and rushes.  Others include oaks, pecans, pistachios, alders, hickory and walnuts.  Many of our food crops are also dependent on the wind for the spread of pollen:  rice, corn, wheat, oats, etc…..as many as 12% of plants in the world.  

Anemophilous flowers typically lack scent and are not showy or rich in nectar.  They usually produce lots and lots of pollen, most of which is smooth, light and non-sticky.  Some are flattened.  Some are winged for flight (pine, pictured above).  The stamens (pollen producers) are well-exposed to the wind, as are the large feathery pollen-catching stigma.

Insects sometimes do visit wind-pollinated flowers, such as oaks, grasses and corn, and of course birds come too to eat the insects.  Although lower in protein, sometimes bees have no other pollen choice.  Grasses are the most important producers of allergens in our area.  Many of us are especially allergic to reed canary grass pollen, whether we realize it or not.  Tap a seed head and watch in amazement the huge cloud of pollen issuing forth!  (I exaggerate.)

The wind is a very common and important seed-dispersal agent as well of course, not only in prairies, but also for tree species such as pine and maple.  The whirlybirds of the maple and pine are familiar.

Seed dispersal by wind is called anemochory.  Anemo, meaning wind, as we know, and chory, a suffix meaning to spread or disperse.  Plants using the wind produce lots and lots of seeds that are very light and often winged.  

Sometimes entire plants are blown around, like tumbleweeds.  Some seeds have hairy plumes, some have balloons, some fuzzy parachutes.  (Dandelion seeds can fly 500 miles, and the Javan cucumber seed, with five-inch papery wings, can glide more than the length of a football field - with no wind!)

Above are some of the anemochorous seeds we collect at Pleasant Valley, seeds we call the “fluffies.”  To name them and a few more:  liatris, goldenrod, asters, milkweed, ironweed, lion’s foot, thistles, joepye weed, ragwort, bonsets, pale and sweet Indian plantain, and on.  Grass and sedge “seeds” are small, light, papery fruits carrying one seed (achenes).  Of course, animals do eat and spread these seeds as well (zoochory), and the wind will even blow seeds around that have landed on water (wait for it…pleustochory, such as willows, and cattails).  Pleust means to sail or float.  And scientists must name things.  

At right are pine seeds liberated from their cones.  Below are seeds of big bluestem.  You’ve no doubt noticed that not everything that is blowing in the wind in seed dispersal is the actual seed.  In like manner, if you were to fly to New Zealand you would indeed be carried by the wind, but you would also undoubtedly be wrapped in an aircraft of some kind.  Similarly, seeds flying happily away from their parent plant are often surrounded by thin, papery ovary walls (grasses and sedges) and/or are attached to flower or leaf (calex) parts modified as feathery appendages, fuzzy parachutes, or wings.

Blowin’ In The Wind, by Bob Dylan (excerpt)

“…how many times can a man turn his head

and pretend that he just doesn’t see?

…and how many times must a man look up

before he can see the sky?

…The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.

The answer is blowin’ in the wind.”