How cool is a #palm that #flowers and #fruits underground?

Explainer 🔗: https://www.kew.org/read-and-watch/the-palm-that-flowers-underground

OA 🔗: https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ppp3.10393

Of course, questions about. Foremost, is how on earth is this #pollinated?

While scientists only learned about this #plant recently:

"It is known in at least three #Bornean #languages by four different names: Pinang Tanah (Malay, West Kalimantan), Pinang Pipit, Muring Pelandok (both Kadorih, Central Kalimantan), and Tudong Pelandok (Iban, Sarawak)."

#biodiversity 🌴

About one-third of the food eaten by Americans comes from crops #pollinated by #honey #bees, yet the #insect is dying off at alarming rates. In one year alone, between April of 2019 and April of 2020, one study reported a 43% colony loss in honey bees across the United States.
#EarthScience #Environmental #Conservation #sflorg
https://www.sflorg.com/2023/01/en01312302.html

Witch hazels (#Hamamelis species and hybrids) are lovely trees from North America and East Asia. Many of the common ones available to gardeners are beloved because they flower on bare stems around January, when not much else is happening, and so bring a bit of colour and joy to a bare garden.

The leaves and bark have many uses in traditional (and more modern) medicine. The #flowers are probably mostly fly-#pollinated but I guess in January they'll take whatever they can get!

Cocoa is especially #pollinated by #Ceratopogonidae midges, particularly the genus #Forcipomyia. However...lots of other insects of similar size may play a role. This could include thrips, gall midges, fruit flies, etc. Gall midges are particularly common on cocoa plantations.

But Forcipomyia respond to the odour of #cocoa flowers, and have hairy bodies that cocoa pollen clings to, so they can carry more grains than many other flower visitors. So it's likely that they're most efficient.

#December 17, 1858
#OTD Charles Morren, #Belgian #Botanist & #Horticulturist, died.

He #Solved a 300-year-old #Botanical #Mystery when he #Discovered that #Vanilla was #Pollinated by the #Melipone ("meh-lip-in-ah") #Bee, a #Social & stingless bee #Native to #Mexico. Like #Monarchs + #Milkweed, they #CoEvolved over #Time.

In 1841, Edmond Albius, a 12-year-old slave discovered that Vanilla could be pollinated w/ a #Blade of #Grass or stick. Today almost all vanilla is hand-pollinated.

#Spice

Hypothetical question because #writing #alternatehistory. If #bees vanished, how much impact would it make on #tea? Camellia sinensis is #pollinated by bees, right? So would need to be hand pollinated? #horticulture #apiarist #entomology #botany

#Bees' average #lifespan has halved in fifty years. That could be bad news for #humanity | Salon.com

One-third of the #human #diet comes from #plants #pollinated by bees

https://www.salon.com/2022/11/15/bees-average-lifespan-has-halved-in-fifty-years-that-could-be-news-for-humanity/