Adaptation - Plant Dispersal

Plant adaptation for seed dispersal:

Plants that have flowers have many adaptations that allow them to successfully reproduce.

Plants need to disperse their seeds so that it will not be overcrowded and the young plants will be overshadowed by their parent plant.

Some flowers have smells, shapes, colours and sizes in order to attract certain pollinators.

Some flowers that depend on wind pollination often have small unimpressive flowers since they do not need t o attract a pollinator.

Dispersal by animals:

v Animals eat the fruit and either discards the seeds or pass them out through their system.

These fruits are usually juicy and fleshy.

v Animals also help to disperse seeds tat ‘hitch-hike’.

These seeds containers have hooks, barbs or sticky coating so that they can be caught in the animals’ fur.

Eg. Love grass and mimosa.

Dispersal by wind:

v Seeds dispersed by the wind are very light.

Eg. Orchids and ferns

v Many have hairy growth which acts like little parachutes.

Eg. Lalang and dandelion

v Some seeds have wing-like structure that slow down their fall.

Eg. Shorea, angsana and sycamore

Dispersal by water:

v The seeds can float on water. Eg. Water

Dispersal by splitting:

v Some plants have pods that explode when ripe and shoots out the seeds.

Eg. African tulip, rubber tree and flame of the forest.

v Some plants have pods that will split open and the seeds subsequently being carried by wind.

Eg. Pea and bean plants