Do poppys have nectar? How can they attract animals? You dont have to answer all the questions.?

Question

Do they have a scent? How do flowers attract animals?

Answer 1

In plants like poppies that have little or no nectar insects visit to acquire pollen to eat. Insects will eat most but some pollen will be carried to the next flower visited. Nectarless insect pollinated flowers open wide and have their anthers prominently displayed. They are fragrant. Fragrance constituents, like 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one (balsam or pine scent), geranyl acetone (fruity tones) and benzyl alcohol (buttery rich tones) are found in Papaver rhoeas. They will be pollinated by beetles, flies or bees that will consume the pollen.

Poppies do not attract animals for seed dispersal they spray seeds from the pod like pepper from a shaker when the wind blows. They spread by a censer mechanism sprinkling them a few at a time.

Flies mainly pollinate white or yellow P. alpinum so the flower has a musky odor.

P. nudicale in sulfuric yellow attracts flies and bees in the Andrena or the Osmia (mason bee) genera.

http://books.google.com/books?id=5-sUAAA...

Plants attract pollinators with scent and color to signal the mature flower that contains a reward. The reward can be either nectar &/or pollen. In flowering plants pollen has evolved two roles: carrier of sperm genome and a protein rich food reward for pollinators. This requires plants make pollen to cover both needs.

The plants seeking these pollination partners often signal the presence of pollen by visual and olfactory cues. Yellow food guides and showy stamens advertise pollen as a food source. Pollen will have its own odor distinct from the flower.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/2446264

" odour ... was the primary and overriding cue used by bees to select pollen."

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob...

Flowers advertise by using shape, color, timing, and scent to assist effective pollinators to find the mature flower yet hide from nectar/pollen robbers that do not carry pollen to another flower.

Biotic pollination

http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~biol240/labs/la...

http://www.life.umd.edu/classroom/bsci12...

Color can do several things. It can offer high contrast markers to guide pollinators to the nectaries or it can differentiate the flower from the background foliage to signal mature flowers with nectar or pollen. The specific color signals to the vision of the specific pollinator. Bees see into the UV but not red so bees see from yellow on through blue and beyond. Moths are night fliers so their flowers are pale and very fragrant. Butterflies see red and near infra-red.  Birds have no sense of smell so the scent is for the insects and color attracts the bird pollinators.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/article...

Birds have 4 cones for color vision and can see into the UV.

http://www.bio.bris.ac.uk/research/visio...