Darwin’s last wish – studying handedness in plants

<p>Since most flowers consist of both male and female parts, they can potentially mate with themselves (self-pollination) or a different plant (outcrossing). But does this process only happen by chance?</p> <p>While plants are often viewed as relatively passive participants in their own mating process, simply waiting for the birds and the bees to distribute their pollen for them, researchers from Stellenbosch University believe they have found (more) evidence of female choice in plants. In this podcast, <strong>Prof Bruce Anderson from the Department of Botany and Zoology</strong> will talk about this phenomenon, and how they managed to describe it using different colored quantum dots to track pollen movement between <em>Wachendorfia paniculata</em> flowers and their pollinators.</p>