Why do plants produce a scent?

The flowers of most plants produce a sweet scent and we are very grateful to them for creating the lovely smells that fill our gardens. Much as we enjoy them, the scents are not meant for our benefit. Plants produce them to attract far more important visitors insects, particularly bees.

When insects crawl inside flowers to sip their nectar, they pick up pollen as well. As they move from flower to flower, the insects transfer the pollen. This ensures that the plants are pollinated and will produce seeds from which other plants will grow the following year.

Not all plants attract insects with sweet scents. Some, like the suitably named Stinkhorn fungus, produce awful smells. This has a smell like rotting flesh to attract large flies which carry away its, spores to produce more plants.

The Stinking Corpse lily smells just as bad, as you might imagine. It needs to attract flies to pollinate it. That is especially important for this tropical plant because it produces the world’s largest flower, which can measure up to ninety centimetres across.

 

Picture Credit : Google

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