I don’t know why, but when summer comes, I often think of those great masters of the world of gardens and flowerbeds that we no longer see.
I often think of Jean-Claude Vigor, whom I consider myself lucky to have known for many years. Jean-Claude is a giant whose erudition extends well beyond gardens and flowerbeds. This gourmand and generous Norman with Viking genetics is a living encyclopedia whose passion has rekindled the love of plants of the farmer’s son that I am. I also knew and loved Ronald Leduc, who unfortunately left us in 2013. With his unique voice, Ronald brilliantly mixed humor and horticulture and shared his knowledge with great generosity.
Like Ronald and Jean-Claude, the history of flowers is also made of sharing and generosity. It is one of the most important pages in the evolution of the biosphere. To find the beginnings of this great revolution in the plant world, we must go back to the Cretaceous period (-145 to -66 million years). While the dinosaurs still reigned as undisputed masters on Earth, a particular group of wasps gradually abandoned the prey they fed on to become vegans. These wasps would become the ancestors of today’s bees.
Why this change in diet? Because at the beginning of the Cretaceous, perhaps even before, other scientists think, the first flowering plants appeared. In exchange for nutritive compounds, these first animal collaborators will coevolve with this new flora to promote its fertilization. Since this great turning point in the Cretaceous, the evolutionary gains of this association are undeniable for both partners. From a very small minority in the Cretaceous, flowering plants have experienced extraordinary evolutionary success. So much so that today, they represent nearly 90% of terrestrial flora including the species that feed us. Bees have also benefited from this association to experience spectacular evolutionary success. Flowers are also the birthplaces of seeds and fruits that are the foundations of an extraordinary animal biodiversity well beyond pollinators.
Today, besides feeding us, flowering plants fulfill our desire for beauty. Can you imagine life without flowers?
Yet if a modern human were to be plunged into the midst of the giant lycopods, horsetails, ferns and other spore-bearing plants that occupied all the space in the humid and marshy forests of the Carboniferous period, he would have found these flowerless landscapes very dull.
PHOTO GETTY IMAGES
The lady’s slipper, an orchid that grows in Quebec, needs insects to ensure its pollination.
Plants that are pollinated by animals have more beautiful, more ostentatious and more colorful flowers. The flower is an advertising poster deployed to catch the eye of bees, butterflies, flies, beetles, birds, bats or any other pollinating partner. During their evolution, they have set up nuptial chambers, adorned with beautiful sheets to accommodate the animal “matchmakers” who promote their fertilization.
In exchange for sweet nectar and pollen, these animals rummage through the flower and involuntarily carry away the pollen grains that are essential for the fertilization of other flowers of the same species that they will visit. While our sperm have a flagellum to facilitate part of their travel to the oocyte, the pollen grains impose a forced carpool on passing pollinators. In addition to pollen and sugar, some insects receive perfume in exchange for their contribution. My biologist friend Charles-Antoine Darveau, an associate professor at the University of Ottawa, told me about species of colorful bees with long tongues that collect “perfumes” from orchid flowers. Why? To improve their chances of flirting during courtship. Isn’t that poetic? These bees that Charles-Antoine tracked in the Panamanian jungle “perfume” themselves with the essential oils that orchids use to protect themselves against insects.
This system of sharing between pollinators and plants has given us this grandiose spectacle that are the flowery spaces in our countryside and our cities. When emotions invade our body in front of such an explosion of colors and scents, we must thank natural selection for having engendered this mixture of cooperation and sharing.
Plants that do not collaborate with animals to reproduce have less colorful and less fragrant flowers. The reason is that to promote their fertilization, they do not invest their energy in these visual and olfactory lures that also make flowers. Here, the strategy consists rather in betting on the release of an astronomical quantity of pollen grains in the hope that a certain fraction of these male sex cells will be lucky enough to fall in the right place. When a plant that is not self-fertile relies on the wind as the agent for fertilizing its flowers, chance becomes the only ally of its reproductive success. To increase its chances tenfold, it is necessary to flood the air with pollen. Ragweed, which makes city dwellers furious, is an interesting example to cite in this area. Like cereals, this plant relies on the wind for its fertilization. Its flower is therefore very dull and it produces enormous quantities of pollen. When its reproductive period arrives, wherever it grows, people sensitive to its pollen are attacked.
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Ragweed relies on the wind for its fertilization, so its flower is quite dull.
When your teenager comes home with red eyes, before accusing him of smoking pot, make sure he hasn’t sniffed pollen. Those sex cells that enter our nostrils were hoping to find an ovary to fertilize, but instead found themselves in a snot to be evacuated. A sad fate, let’s say.
I am one of those who marvel at flowerbeds where pollinators are active. To promote such a spectacle near you, it is important to choose plant species that are more generous with their collaborators. Unfortunately, today, everywhere in our cities, flower varieties that have been selected by humans for the simple pleasure of the eyes grow, but which are real food deserts for bees.
In these almost sterile beauties, there are double flowers. These varieties have been selected to replace the stamens with additional petals. When the number of extra petals ends up making the stamens disappear completely, the old alliance between pollinators and flowering plants is then profaned by the hand of man. Thus, in the rose bushes sold in our shops, the usual number of petals is multiplied by two, three or four.
PHOTO BOUCAR DIOUF, SPECIAL COLLABORATION
The roses sold in our stores sometimes have ten times the number of petals; the stamens which contain the pollen are no longer visible.
These flowers, stuffed with petals, are very popular among bouquet lovers. Unfortunately, they are so bushy that insects can no longer enter their corolla. They still have the power to attract pollinators, but they no longer have anything interesting to offer them. This causes a huge waste of time for the bees who visit them again and again, hoping unsuccessfully to find food there.
This is why a mix of flowers including native species that are naturally beneficial to pollinators is smarter and more sustainable than a monoculture of double flowers. If these species that are next to each other in the flowerbed bloom at different times, it’s even better. So professed the lazy gardener, Larry Hodgson, who left us in October 2022. Another great man passionate about plants and horticulture who generously shared his knowledge with us until the end.
This is also the world of flowers and pollination. It is a simple story of sharing.
A much more sustainable economic model than the fierce competition that seems to have inspired capitalism. This system that crowns the most powerful and sends the weakest into the catacombs of the history of life.
I wish you a summer of flowers, trees, nature, health, family and sharing. A bit like the vast majority of flowering plants do with their pollinators.
Boucar Diouf’s column is taking a break until the fall.