[pbs] hummingbirds and red
Max Withers
maxwithers at gmail.com
Wed Oct 4 18:54:32 EDT 2006
I can't remember where I read that hummingbirds gravitate to the reds
because insects compete for nectar less in that color range. This merely
replaces the anthropomorphic explanation with an insecto-morphic one,
but at least it is an explanation.
Certainly the hummingbird-pollinated (exclusively, as determined by tube
length*) passifloras are in red spectrum, and generally quite distinct
in morphology and color from the bat-, moth-, other-pollinated groups.
In my own garden, the Anna's hummingbirds LOVE the hideous purple Salvia
leucantha I inherited, and mostly ignore the red-spectrum plants I put
in for them, including several other Salvias, Epilobium canum,
Monardella macratha, Kniphofia, and an old Fuschia hybrid (also
inherited) among others.
But their taste will improve in a week or two when I finally eliminate
that monstrous S. leucantha!
Max
Oakland
First rain today since April!
* Tube length can be deceptive. As Joe noted there are no hummingbirds
in S. Africa, but very many tubular flowers, which are at least in part
pollinated by a fly whose name I forget with freakishly long mouthparts.
In the case of (at least some of) the Tacsonia group of passionflowers,
the tube length precludes all but one hummingbird pollinator, whose beak
is longer than its body.
> Message: 14
> Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2006 10:28:06 -0400
> From: "Jim McKenney" <jimmckenney at jimmckenney.com>
> Subject: Re: [pbs] hummingbirds
> To: <gardenersview at adelphia.net>, "'Pacific Bulb Society'"
> <pbs at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Message-ID: <000001c6e62e$fac24e80$2f01a8c0 at Library>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> I've always been skeptical of the claim that hummingbirds "prefer" red
> flowers. And it isn't only the anthropomorphic aspect of this argument which
> bothers me.
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