A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Caspicum annuum
This is one of the pepper plants in our school garden. It has a big pepper growing on it as well as a small white flower.
The pepper plant is in the garden and receives full sun.
This plant was chosen by the a 4th grade group at John G (the Black Widows). Here are the questions based on their observations: 1. What do the peppers start off small? 2. What kind of insects eat their pollen? 3. Why are the flowers white?
5 Comments
The pepper plant is sort of self-sufficient. Do you know what that means? It means it doesn't really need pollinators to help pollinate it. Those white flowers (that aren't so fancy to our eyes) can pollinate themselves! What is one group of pollinators that would be happy to help? (hint - what kind of pollinator really likes white flowers?)
Native bees ate the primary pollinators of pepper plants. 🌶 does that them spicy pollinators?
Hey! If this is a hot pepper do you think the pollen is spicy? Will native bees pollinate spicy pepper plants at the same time as sweet pepper plants? What would happen if they do?
You asked about white flowers and I wondered why the flowers weren't red or yellow! Do you think if the flowers were a different color they'd attract different insects? What color does the pollinator see best?
All plants start out as seedlings and then grow larger adding leaves and height to their stem. The peppers are the fruit of the plant, and they are just one set of cells diving many times adding new cells and getting larger. When you think about a seed that grows into an Oak tree, how small is that seed? What other kinds of seedlings did you find?