Unconsummated Intimacy. Anthers and Filaments, Pistil and Stigma, Rhododendron, Our Garden, Venlo, The Netherlands
Here's a photo of the intimate parts of a Rhododendron Flower. Flowers, of course, are the reproductive organs of a plant and the history of their description and function is interesting and often quite humorous. Great Carolus Linnaeus even got into a lot of trouble for his doctoral comparison of plant and human sexuality (see my www.flickr.com/photos/87453322@N00/26208808473/in/photoli...).
Rhododendrons are by and large sexually self-incompatible. That is to say that a given plant cannot be fertilised by its own pollen. So the pollen developed by these ten stamens and 'offered' on their anthers cannot - if it lands on the sticky, red stigma of the style - unite with the ovarian eggs at its bottom. So there will be no viable seed in this way. That, of course, is where insects come in. Guided by 'insect markings' - in this case those brown spots - they find their way to the Attractive Sweetness in and around the ovary at the base of the style. Meanwhile our insect - already carrying pollen from another flower - will brush it inadvertently on that stigma. Thus a 'stranger''s pollen will grow its tube down the style and fertilise the ovule. Viable seed is the result. And the intimacy of our flower's male and female organs remains unconsummated.
Unconsummated Intimacy. Anthers and Filaments, Pistil and Stigma, Rhododendron, Our Garden, Venlo, The Netherlands
Here's a photo of the intimate parts of a Rhododendron Flower. Flowers, of course, are the reproductive organs of a plant and the history of their description and function is interesting and often quite humorous. Great Carolus Linnaeus even got into a lot of trouble for his doctoral comparison of plant and human sexuality (see my www.flickr.com/photos/87453322@N00/26208808473/in/photoli...).
Rhododendrons are by and large sexually self-incompatible. That is to say that a given plant cannot be fertilised by its own pollen. So the pollen developed by these ten stamens and 'offered' on their anthers cannot - if it lands on the sticky, red stigma of the style - unite with the ovarian eggs at its bottom. So there will be no viable seed in this way. That, of course, is where insects come in. Guided by 'insect markings' - in this case those brown spots - they find their way to the Attractive Sweetness in and around the ovary at the base of the style. Meanwhile our insect - already carrying pollen from another flower - will brush it inadvertently on that stigma. Thus a 'stranger''s pollen will grow its tube down the style and fertilise the ovule. Viable seed is the result. And the intimacy of our flower's male and female organs remains unconsummated.