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NEW ZEALAND BEEKEEPER, NOVEMBER 2016
PHOTO ESSAY
TEUCRIUM FRUTICANS: A HEDGE PLANT ATTRACTIVE TO BEES To a landscape gardener committed to a clipped, Italianate design, Teucrium fruticans offers a hedging option that complements a ‘Melissa garden’. Commonly called Germander, the bush is classified in the family Lamiaceae, which includes many Mediterranean herbs and shrubs including mint. If left to ‘grow out’, the flowers that form are unusual in shape, could be seen as architectural in presentation and do attract foraging bees. Paul Burgess
The stamen and stigma have been negotiated and access to the nectary is sought. One of the anthers has undergone dehiscence (defined by Wikipedia as “the spontaneous opening at maturity of a plant structure, such as a fruit, anther, or sporangium, to release its contents”).
The flower of the Teucrium fruticans is zygomorphic; i.e., it displays bilateral symmetry (the right and left sides of the flower are mirror images) like an orchid and not the usual radial symmetry seen in an orthodox flower (referred to as actinomorphic). The four arching cantilevered stamen and single terminating stigma are distinctive features. José Gómez and colleagues at the University of Granada, Spain, studied flowers that produce simultaneous actinomorphic and zygomorphic flower configurations. They found that foraging beetles at least preferred the latter design, leading to the conclusion of possible evolutional pathways (Balter, 2006).
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