Pollen (sorry it's late, I really did write it yesterday - I blame 3's pants 3g dongle)

Pollen

Ok – this is a tricky one because as far as I know I know almost nothing about pollen, lets see shall we. What is pollen? Well, I've put my time in as a slacker, so I've watched more than my fair share of documentaries about plants. Pollen is all to do with sex. Pollen is genetic material. And just like how with humans, you have to get the genetic material from the man's parts to the ladies parts so that you can make babies. It's just like that with plants, or with some plants anyway. I'm a bit hazy about if it's that way with all plants. And just like with humans. Although it's relatively simple to explain what goes on, glory be, isn't there a mighty palaver actually getting it to happen. With plants, it's not simple, in fact I think it might even be more complicated that dinner and a movie (and much more complicated than a bottle of Lambrini and a bag of chips wi' bits). So I think that the plant has both bits, male and female (sometimes, it doesn't - I think Jesus I really should have paid more attention when I was watching slacker TV). And in Rural Science class, but, ironically, I was too busy imagining what it might be like to inseminate Louise Heckmondwicke who was sitting at the desk in front of me and had just recently acquired a full set of breasts – almost overnight, as if they'd arrived mail order. So you see, I was paying far to much attention to my own insemination problems to listen to how it works in geraniums. There are some stamen. And some anthers. I think that's right. And when a geranium loves another geranium very much, or even when it loves itself very much. Shit. No.

Look, lets look at this a different way. Lets look at it as a package delivery problem. These flowers have got some pollen, and they want it delivered to some other flowers, who live a long way away. So they can make an exotic baby which is a combination of both strands of DNA, who is better looking and more resistant to disease. This is almost exactly the same reason why countries all over the world send their children on high-school exchanges to France. And because flowers don't have access to FedEx, or maybe because they do and realise that if they send it FedEx, the flower at the other end is going to have to go and pick up the pollen from a depot on an industrial estate outside Wood Green, they have a bunch of alternative strategies for delivery.

The first idea that these crazy flowers have come up with – and I know this wouldn't probably be your first choice, is they throw a party for bees. But if you're going to throw a party for bees and you want them to come, you've got to serve special drinks – this stuff called nectar. If you wanted wasps, you could just stick with the econo-pack of Stella – actually, the wasps would probably even drink carling, but the bees. The bees. The bees are a bit like having fucking ethical tree-hugging fucking vegans round for dinner – they're very fussy. So you have to break out this sugar water stuff that is the only stuff that they eat and wouldn't really be nourishing enough for anyone else – it's kind of like the etymological equivalent of Shloer. And while the bees are all slurping up the nectar – you dust them with pollen. Yeah, I know that's weird. But the hope is that later in the evening – probably when you run out of Shloer. They're going to go to another party. And your pollen is going rub off on their carpets and curtains (this metaphor is starting to feel like a motorbike laying in bits on the kitchen table). Deep breath. Your pollen will rub off on the carpets and curtains and you'll have babies together. Really. That's how it's supposed to happen.

But of course, this is a really elaborate method of having babies. It's a bit like not only insisting on the birthing tub, but insisting that it's filled with water from the dead sea and the mid-wife has to be an obese druidess in a purple velvet dressing gown called Layla. And pollen is fucking expensive. Even more expensive that Shloer.

So some plants do something simultaneously more callous and more romantic. They literally throw their sperm into the wind and let the elements carry it where they may (again, I've done something very similar whilst thinking about Louise Heckmondwicke during the Summer holidays). The weird thing is that some times this works. Sometimes other flowers of the same species catch this pollen and bada-bing bada-boom a new seed is created. And then sometimes, that gets blown away on the wind to land who knows what where? For a lot of plants, this is a wind-powered deal.

But there's a problem. Isn't there always? Yup, there's a problem. Well, it's a problem for some people anyway. It's not so much of a problem if you have shares in the companies that sell over-the-counter anti-histamines. Yup that's right. This is other species. A species, which quite literally should not be sticking it's nose into plant-sex, for some reason that absolutely no-one knows, this other species starts reacting badly to their being pollen in the air. Streaming nose, puffy eyes, but the most disturbing symptom for the loved ones of sufferers is the sustained and intense periods of whining.

Posted via email from The Ginger Mumbly