How Do Flowers Get Their Smell?

After a recent inquiry on our Facebook Fan Page about the stinky smell of certain flowers we decided this would be a fun and interesting blog post. Have you ever wondered why some flowers smell so appealing while others make you squish your nose and yes maybe even gag? Spring is here so flowers are in full the swing of things and here is why!

A flower's fragrance is all about reproduction. The fragrance attracts insects and animals, and it tempts them to enter the bloom. When the insect or animal ventures into the bloom, some of that flower's pollen rubs off. When the insect or animal goes into another bloom of the same species, it leaves behind the pollen of the previous flower. The pollen fertilizes the new flower's eggs.

Once the flower is fertilized or pollinated, that flower's fragrance decreases. This allows flowers that have yet to be pollinated to be more attractive to pollinators. The fertilized flower's petals fade and are replaced by the ripening seed pod.

For the pollinators, the flower's fragrance signals food or mimics the pheromones of female insects. By attracting pollinators, the flower's fragrance can increase the pollinators' breeding and foraging efficiency. Some flowers only have scent during the day, but others release their fragrances exclusively at night. Flowers that attract bees, birds and butterflies have a sweet scent while flowers pollinated by beetles and moths have a muskier or fruity odor.(Yum)

So there you have it. Just like people are attracted to different scents for different reasons, so how insects and birds! We thought this was a great question and with everything in bloom it just made since to do a post about it.