Les Jones

Home Life > Bearded Irises Are Up

These came from my mother's perennial garden when she moved in with us. They've really taken off, and are about three feet high.

In that top photo you can see how an insect crawls along the bristly thing and through the flower tunnel to get to the nectar. In the process the insect gets covered in pollen. Charles Darwin was immensely interested in the pollination of flowers by insects, and wrote a book, The Various Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilised by Insects, on the subject.