Ants and primrose: natural mutual aid

Flowers and ants are an old love story. This is also the case for the primers who, over the course of evolution, favored this singular meeting. Because the seeds of the plant carry a small fleshy outgrowth, called elaïosome, rich in lipids and protein. A particularly interesting feature for ants which find there an appreciable food source for young larvae high in the ants.

This is how the seeds are transported in the colony and then, rid of their pocket of fat, are rejected in the trash can. But with all the plant and food waste accumulated there, the seeds will be able to germinate with ease. Everyone therefore finds their account in this unexpected alliance, between symbiosis and mutualism.

The dispersion of the seeds by ants has a scientific name: it is the art of the myrmary myrme, which many other perennial plants have developed.

On the side of pollination, it is still another matter: there, it is the bees in particular who work by transporting the pollen from one flower to another. The latter have different forms to allow one to harvest pollen and the other to deposit it easily. Without forgetting, at the end of the petals, a line of pink points aligned to facilitate the landing of winged visitors. A sophisticated consideration.