Review: Physics of pollinator attraction

Flowers use a variety of strategies to attract pollinators and ensure successful pollination, including color and scent. Moyroud and Glover review some of the less familiar strategies including physical alterations to reflected light. As one example, conical epidermal cells on snapdragon flower petals focus and scatter light, enhancing petal coloration. Other petals appear glossy due to particularly flat epidermal cells, and still others have small structures that diffract light and so produce iridescence. The authors also describe floral tricks such as spring-loaded anthers that ensure pollen gets deposited onto the visiting pollinators. New Phytol. 10.1111/nph.14312