What is pollination?

Flowering plants reproduce by making flowers. A flower is usually hermaphrodite, with both male and female roles.

Hence, it is essentially a structure that produces and dispenses the male gametophytes (or pollen), organizes the recipe of incoming pollen from another plant onto its own receptive surfaces on the stigma, and then appropriately guides the pollen’s genetic material to the female ovules. The female part contains the stigma and the ovary where eggs are formed.

The flower itself is immotile, so that incoming pollen has to be borne on some motile carrier, such as wind (anemophily), water (hydrophily), insects (entomophily), birds (ornithophily) and bats (cheiropterophily).

The male gamete is transferred in the pollen so that fertilization can occur. This is pollination. The gametes fuse at fertilization inside the ovary to produce a zygote. The zygote develops into an embryo inside a seed.

If pollination occurs within the same flower is its term self-pollination. More common is cross-pollination where the pollen grains are transferred to another plant of the same species.

Insects are the most common pollinators. The flowers producing nectar and fragrance, with bright colors, attract the insects. The most common insect pollinators are – moths, flies, butterflies, wasps, bees, beetles etc.
What is pollination?