The Flower - Insights Talk

The first flowering plants appeared on Earth over 130 million years ago. The long trek from early primitivity involved changes in all flower components, leading to the attractive and reproductively efficient organs we see today.

In this talk, Reg Harris will briefly review the trek, and reveal some of the fundamental aspects of pollination involving the vectors birds, bees, slugs and snails, and wind. Attention will be paid to the ability of some flowers to avoid self-pollination and the reproductive downsides that can result.
The fascinating ‘double fertilisation’, which is common to most flowering plants and which provides nutrients for the growing embryo, will be highlighted, as will examples of botanical illustration enabled by late 19th-century high-precision light microscopy.

Located in the Treehouse Seminar Room, Wellington Botanic Garden ki Paekākā.
This talk is part of the Wellington Botanic Garden ‘Insights’ programme.
Free entry for the Friends, public entry by koha. You’re welcome to bring along your own ‘brown bag’ lunch to enjoy during the talk.