For sometime now, I have been under the impression that honey bees and butterflies have fled the Chennai Metro area - the original metropolitan area - not the one assimilated by the current Chennai Corporation.
:-P
Thus it was a surprise when I spied a dead butterfly on the rooftop a few weeks back. But day-before-yesterday was even more of a surprise - a pleasant one. For I spied a couple of honeybees buzzing around the pumpkin flowers on my rooftop container garden.
The only shame was both the flowers appeared to be male flowers and all the pollen exchange by the bees would be of no use. In fact, all 3 or 4 flowers which had budded in that pumpkin vine seemed to be male.
Which is going to be of no use to anyone - except some nectar for those bees. That point also sent me to quickly brush up on my 8th standard biology lesson - whether pumpkin plants have both male and female flowers on the same plant.
Sure enough, pumpkins are Monoecious, though I am not sure whether a single plant will produce both male and female flowers at the same time - simultaneously monoecious or whether they will produce male and female flowers in turn - consecutively monoecious.
If pumpkins are consecutively monoecious, that may answer why whole lot of pumpkin plants over the years never bore the gourds.
:-“)
Whatever, enjoy the video. Soundtrack is a shameless copy from the Bee Movie, and the song Here Comes The Sun, performed by Sheryl Cole.
Related Posts:
1st female pumpkin flower
:-P
Thus it was a surprise when I spied a dead butterfly on the rooftop a few weeks back. But day-before-yesterday was even more of a surprise - a pleasant one. For I spied a couple of honeybees buzzing around the pumpkin flowers on my rooftop container garden.
The only shame was both the flowers appeared to be male flowers and all the pollen exchange by the bees would be of no use. In fact, all 3 or 4 flowers which had budded in that pumpkin vine seemed to be male.
Which is going to be of no use to anyone - except some nectar for those bees. That point also sent me to quickly brush up on my 8th standard biology lesson - whether pumpkin plants have both male and female flowers on the same plant.
Sure enough, pumpkins are Monoecious, though I am not sure whether a single plant will produce both male and female flowers at the same time - simultaneously monoecious or whether they will produce male and female flowers in turn - consecutively monoecious.
If pumpkins are consecutively monoecious, that may answer why whole lot of pumpkin plants over the years never bore the gourds.
:-“)
Whatever, enjoy the video. Soundtrack is a shameless copy from the Bee Movie, and the song Here Comes The Sun, performed by Sheryl Cole.
Bees buzzing on a pumpkin flower at Chennai
Related Posts:
1st female pumpkin flower
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