Blackberry: The Flower

Himalayan Blackberry is happening. Finally. And if we can just keep a week or two of sun, or at least, not rain, maybe we'll get some honey. Very little Maple came in, after two good years, and I have my doubts about seeing any Blackberry either. In part, as I have had to let go some- in that 60% or more of my hives perished last winter, and most of my hives are new colonies now. It is, as our president likes to say, "sad". Its been a game changer for me- very unsure of what the best routes are to keep bees going, after many years of thinking I had at least a little of it figured out. Oh well. Thats true with lots of things.

In any case, good news is: Blackberry. And miles of it in the valley.  Packed and green and pretty much ready to explode. Kingflowers have come and gone,and now the next round has started. It rained a bunch- and for some reason- white flowers turned pink.

In an idle after-work hour or two, with nothing better to do, I found what looked to me like the perfect flower cluster of blackberry. I drew it and photographed it (to share later I think), and put it under the microscope to try, once again, to figure out why its such a great nectar flower. In a previous investigation, I could not figure out where the heck the bees were getting nectar- I could not find what are called the "nectaries". This time I got it (I think). 

The photo above is  a flower as a bee approaches. No clear entry, a mass of hairy looking tangled stamens to wade through. I don't know if bees  even collect pollen off this plant- I sort of think not- though there is lots of it- because the nectar is bubbling up - which I would think, is way more enticing for them now. But I don't really know- though I think I know how to know, which is to watch, and t sample some of the pollen loads right now.

The picture  below is the back of the flower, with the stem cut off. There is sort of a crown of sepals that fold back over the stem (toward the camera), and a nice 5  part organization, You can see the anthers behind. The petals have lots of room around them, and are attached along a narrow margin. It seems to me that the "negative space" here acts like a star pattern, as if the flower itself had a colored pattern, as some do to indicate the location of the nectar for pollinators.

But here it is where it happens- picture below- I pull off the anthers on one side, and cut of the stigmas- and at the base of the whole thing is a place that's like Bubbling Crude.  Nectar, that is. Yellow Gold. You can see the droplets below- they are, I think , rising out of the base of the flower- beneath the ovaries (its a druplet so lots of ovaries), and hard to get to- but fairly well dripping. If I poke at it, more juice comes up. There aren't any bumps or organs that might be a nectary- its like the whole surface is a sponge. I tried to taste it- thinking it would be like sucking on clover- but I couldn't taste it at all. That might have been because of the beer I was drinking. But if it had sweetness, it certainly was faint. 

To make more sense of how a blackberry flower works, I slice one in half, so you can see the shape. This first photo has no ovaries (cut off from sample above)- you can just see the base. But there isn't really an obvious place where so called "nectaries" occur. Looking close, I only saw a flat surface where the beads of nectar were.

Below is a stitched picture- which I can do by taking multiple pictures in the scope. The ovaries are intact- and you can see it sort of like a tree underneath all of the anthers. The stigmas rises up in the center of the forest. I have no idea how this flower avoids self pollination- it would seem like the plant would always be releasing pollen at some flower or other, and having receptive stigmas somewhere else.

In the shadow of the tree- around the "trunk" is where the action seems to be. The bee enters into the mess of anthers, but also into the mass of stigmas, and then has to burrow down to get under the forming druplet to suck in nectar. Of which, at least in this flower, there is a lot. I am sort of guessing here- maybe there are other places the nectar appears- but it sure seems to make sense that its at least a little hard to get to,and involves some burrowing.