News Plants

Projectile pollen helps this flower edge out reproductive competition

Pollen blasts from Hypenea macrantha flowers knock competitors’ pollen off hummingbird beaks

A person's grasps a hummingbird skull between their fingers and pokes it into a red flower's cup of petals

To see if Hypenea macrantha flowers blow competitors’ pollen from hummingbird beaks, researchers poked skulls of the birds laden with fluorescent pollen into flowers (as shown) and tracked how much remained.

Bruce Anderson

By Nala Rogers

Some flowers may be using their pollinators as sexual battlegrounds.

Red, Brazilian flowers called Hypenea macrantha use projectile blasts of pollen to knock rival pollen off of hummingbirds’ beaks and replace it with their own, researchers report in a study to appear in the American Naturalist.