Fun Fact #37: Let me tell you about a interesting little flower. It has 3 white petals and floats on the surface of the water with a long pedicel attached to the plant way down in the water. This particular flower is a part of the family Hydrocharitaceae, in this family some species have separate male and female plants (separate male and female flowers). So how does the pollen from the male flower get to the stigma of the female flower for pollinisation you ask? Well the male flower is cut loose (quite literally) and floats away from its plant.

Question

trancenova · Answer

While its floating along by pot luck it hits the female flower and plop! Flips over on top of the female flower placing its pollen onto the flowers stigma. This is a form of water pollination that doesn't involve the mass release of pollen into the water but the release of the male flowers! Source: Terribly sorry but this one is from old lecture notes! But it does cover it briefly in here: http://coo.fieldofscience.com/2009/03/flowers-in-water-taxon-of-week.html

trancenova · Answer

*Oh, meant pollination! :)

anonymous · Answer

nice fact..!!

trancenova · Answer

Thanks :) Its a pity though.. I thought there was a video of it somewhere but I can't find it!

anonymous · Answer

yup..ur welcome ..are u sure there was video of it?

trancenova · Answer

Lol, no I'm not sure especially since it doesn't seem to exist anywhere :P

anonymous · Answer

oh..yeah?i hope you're just kidding me..

anonymous · Answer

http://www.plantbiology.siu.edu/PLB479/images2/VallisneriaLC.jpg http://www.odu.edu/~lmusselm/plant/image.php?type=source&id=10080 http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/conn.river/eelgr.html