We figured out that it was cross-pollinated by bees. But why? Simply because, it's leaves are large and it also has brightly coloured bracts. However, they are often confused with flower petals, but they are actually leaves and have an added function to attract pollinators.
As you can see from the picture above, the leaves are brightly coloured to attract pollinators. Thus, it must be insect pollinated. It also has a sweet scent.
After that, we continued walking around and spotted another type of flower, the hibiscus plant.
From the flower, we noticed that it was of a bright colour red. It also had extremely large petals, serving as a landing platform for insects. Furthermore, the stigma is protruding out of the flower to for a greater exposed surface area to catch pollen grains produced by other hibiscus plants. Therefore, it must be cross-pollinated. It also has a bull's-eye shaped petals and stamens to guide the insects to the nectar.
Next, we saw an Alamanda plant.
Again, it had brightly coloured petals to attract insects to come and pollinate the plant.
Then, we saw flowers which came in clusters (influorescences): The Ixora plant.
It is insect pollinated since it is brightly coloured. We even took a close-up photo of the flowers.
Next, we saw a unique flower, the Tiger Lily Plant.
It is pollinated by wind. This is because the anther are dangling out of the flower, which allows the anther to be in optimal position to release pollen grains when these anthers are matured. Thus, this allows the pollen grains to be blown away by and land on another flower eventually. It is also self pollinated since the anthers are located above the stigma, which allows the pollen grains to fall onto the stigma when the anthers break open.
Then, we realised that grass was also a wind pollinated flower.
Since the flowers of grass were small and dull, it is most likely to be wind-pollinated since it does not appear to insects. Therefore, we were also shocked to realise this since we did not know that grass even had flowers before going on this nature trail.
Reflections:
I feel that this was a meaningful learning journey since I had learnt more about the flowers. For example, I did not even realise grass actually had flowers until I went on this nature trail. This goes to show that life sciences can be very interesting if we take one step forward to explore mother nature. There are many things that we may not know of. Only through exploring will we uncover these hidden secrets. Thus, in Science, self-exploration is very important as we uncover many new discoveries.
It is useless if we just study science without really exploring it. In this nature trail, I was very satisfied and actually managed to clarify many of my doubts. Everything was self explanatory. Science is not just about facts, facts and facts. We need to actually experience it ourselves and not just look at the textbook all day long. This especially important for biology students. A biology student who stays at home the whole day would never achieve good grades. On the other hand, another student who loves exploring mother nature would definitely do well since they interact with plants and animals frequently, developing an interest for the subject. This is a more effective way as compared to studying from the textbook. Therefore, I hope that we would be able to have more of these kinds of lessons in the future.
