Categories: My Garden

How Desert Plants Get Pollinated

Plants require pollination to create seeds and propagate themselves. Although many plants have asexual methods (rhizomes, budding) to create clones of themselves, In many regions of the world, honeybees are the major pollinators of most plants. But, honeybees require water, and in arid and semi-arid regions, water is a scarce commodity.

So plants and various animals have developed symbiotic relationships: the plants provide nectar and pollen, and the animals, moving from flower to flower and plant to plant, provide pollination. Also, some plants depend on wind to pollinate.

Bees are important to desert plants, and many times, other members of the Apidae family are in the driver’s seat, including bumblebees, carpenter bees and leafcutter bees, to name a few.

Many desert plants rely on pollen wasps, ants, beetles, hornets, butterflies, bats, birds, moths, and other invertebrates and vertebrates to carry on the important task of pollination.

In fact, many of the animals that pollinate desert plants are migratory, and pollinate as they pass through the area. Monarch butterflies, bats, and white-winged doves are great examples of migratory pollinators.

In fact, about 80 percent of all plants are pollinated by some biotic (living) thing. The remaining 20 percent are pollinated by wind or water.

There are literally thousands of plants that are native in desert regions. In the Chihuahuan Desert, which stretches from northern Mexico to northern New Mexico, the list is in the hundreds (see Chihuahuan Desert Plants), as is the Sonoran Desert (See Sonoran Desert Plants).

Palmer’s Penstemon (Penstemons palmerii) is pollinated by bumble bees. Western columbine (Aguilegia formosa) depends upon the sphinx moth, while the saguaro cactus (Carnegiea gigantean) depends upon nectar-feeding bats, although bees and doves also play a minor role in pollinating it. The Arizona Firecracker (Ipomopsis arizonica) is pollinated almost exclusively by migrating hummingbirds.