• Question: why do some flowers open at night but some only in the day?

    Asked by Paige.b.c to Cristiane on 9 Mar 2015. This question was also asked by paige379.
    • Photo: Cristiane Calixto

      Cristiane Calixto answered on 9 Mar 2015:

      Isn’t it amazing that some plants do that?
      Ok, so flowers are opened for pollination, right? But let’s think of a flower that is pollinated by bats. When are bats active? During the night. Therefore, bat-pollinated plants will open their flowers during the night. Bees are active during the day, so bee-pollinated flowers will open during the day.
      Next question you might be thinking is: why closing the flowers? Why not leaving them open all the time? Well, flowers are delicate and very expensive to produce. So when there’s no pollinator around, some plants will close their flowers to protect them from herbivores and bad weather, for ex.

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