A garden pea plant, Pisum sativum, in flower. The picture shows a flower (white) and a developing pod (below, left). The picture was taken after a rai

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A garden pea plant, Pisum sativum, in flower. The picture shows a flower (white) and a developing pod (below, left). The picture was taken after a rain shower, and shows droplets of water adhering to the water-repellent waxy coating on the epidermis of the plant. Water has a high surface tension, encouraging the formation of spherical droplets, a low-energy shape that minimises surface area for a given volume of flowers enclose the reproductive tissues within a flower that has only one plane of symmetry (zygomorphic ). Such a structure usually indicates that the flower is pollinated by insects. Although insects do visit the flowers of peas, they are not necessary to ensure a crop in commercial cultivars, which have long been selected to be self-pollinating. Peas therefore represent a crop whose performance is of little concern in the face of a fall in bee populations.

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Size: 3468px × 5212px
Photo credit: © DR JEREMY BURGESS/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: -, -pollination, bee, crop, flower, food, garden, insect, pea, pisum, plant, pollination, population, sativum, surface, tension, zygomorphic