Where do bunchberry’s bunches of berries come from? Bunches of flowers!
What looks to be a single four-petaled flower is actually many tiny flowers surrounded by four white bracts (modified leaves). When bumblebees and other large pollinators land on the 1-2mm wide flowers, the petals spring open. The stamens (male reproductive flower parts) then catapult pollen more than ten times the height of the flower! This event is too fast to see in real time and is barely discernible at 10,000 frames a second.
Try gently touching your fingers to the closed flower petals to initiate this explosive pollination strategy yourself!
