Grip and slip

Abstract

Flowers interact simultaneously with a variety of insect visitors, including mutualistic pollinators and antagonists such as florivores, nectar robbers and pollinator predators. The plant epidermis produces a range of structures, such as conical or papillate cells, that can help mutualists to grip the flower, while a variety of other structures, such as slippery wax crystals on the flowers or on the stems leading to them, are able to deter non-beneficial insects or behaviours. Modification of the floral surface can also aid pollination in unusual ways in some highly specialised interactions. In the case of the trap-flowers in species of Arisaema, conical cells aid pollination by being present on the spathe surface, but here they are modified in such a way as to decrease the pollinating insect’s grip. We discuss a variety of these floral structural features that influence insect stability on the plant.

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Acknowledgements

H.M.W. gratefully acknowledges a Lloyd’s of London Tercentenary foundation fellowship and a British Ecological Society Small Projects Grant. The original body of this work was funded by Natural Environment Research Council grant NE/C000552/1 to B.J.G. and L.C. H.M.W. would also like to thank Mr. T. Marden at Shady Plants nursery (Stroud, UK) for information regarding Arisaema species.

Figures and Tables

Figure 1 (A) Salvia candelabra petal conical cells. (B) Foeniculum vulgare stem showing slippery wax deposition. (C) Arisaema jacquemontii epidermal cells from inside the spathe, pointing downwards and preventing insects climbing out. Scale bar = 100 µm.

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