Its kangaroo paw season again. These are some of the first ones out in the parks and it brightens my morning to see them along the rubbish run. I love kangaroo paws as they are very rewarding plants, putting on displays of unusual flowers that last a surprisingly long time. The major drawback to the flowers are the massive amounts of tiny little hairs they are covered in. When you go to prune off the spent flowers, you get covered in them and wind up itching for hours. As much as I hate the fur on the flowers, it serves a pretty important function for the plant. Ants! Ants are notorious little buggers in the horticultural world. They make gardeners lives hell by spreading troublesome insects like scale and aphids (they secrete a sweet substance the ants love to eat). They make plants lives hell as they are notorious nectar thieves. Reproduction is the most energy draining part of a plants life, so creating nectar to entice a bird to pollinate a flower is another drain on its energy store. If an ant crawls in and drinks the nectar before the bird, then the flower doesnt get pollinated. Kangaroo Paws evolved the little hairs to help prevent this. Have you ever had an ant crawl along your arm and see it struggle to walk due to the hairs growing out of your skin? The hairs on the kangaroo paw flower does the same thing. It makes it difficult for the ant to get to the nectar reservoir, so the ant goes in search of easier flowers to rob. Which means the the is a greater chance of the flower being pollinated. Win for the flower!
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