Evidence backs Darwin's theory about 'runt' flowers
Charles Darwin had the right idea about a type of self-pollination called cleistogamy in flowers, researchers find. Some plant species actually produce two types of flowers: “normal” ones that look great, and “runts” that are small, never open, and—rather than attract pollinating insects—instead pollinate themselves. In a study in Current Biology, Daniel Schoen of McGill University and Simon Joly of the Université de Montréal show that cleistogamy, as this type of self-pollination is known, is strongly associated with bilaterally symmetric flowers, such as orchids, that have a ...
Source: futurity.org