Monday, June 28, 2010

bitter gourds: the male flowers

a male flower

a male flower

a male flower

a male bud

a male flower
with many male buds
queuing for their turn to make appearance


Bitter gourd plants look very pretty when yellow flowers start to emerge. Most never end as fruits. These are the male flowers. The plant decides early which flower should end up having fruit.  The chosen flower will emerge with elongated and bulging stalk with flower bud at the tip. The lucky female flower is lucky indeed to be surrounded by many males.....

6 comments:

  1. Interesting post, beautiful flower :)

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  2. Hi Bangchik- I'm growing a vining okra (luffa ) and the flowers are also very delicate and look a bit like this. Really don't know what to expect!

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  3. Hello,
    The males flowers are very small, I thought they would be bigger.
    Bravo, nice photos.

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  4. Marie
    JGH
    Ellada
    meyerprints
    AaronVFT

    Thanks everyone with your visits and comments. Gardening is about growing plants and harvesting produce. Somewhere along the way, we are exposed with many other things that may or may not have direct linkage to the harvest.

    It doesn't matter if we don't know about male and female flowers for gourds. But knowing little things about a particular plant adds to the whole knowledge. Gardening is somewhat experiential learning as we move on with digging, fluffing, fertilising, weeding and harvesting.

    There are times when gardeners help plants pollinating by manually rub pollens to the female flower, especially in insect free environment.

    Knowing a little bit more about plants allows us to be aware of what to expect, and if necessary add in interventions.

    Bitter gourds have little male flowers. Over the delicate foliage, little stalks are very much visible to us and definitely to the insects as well. The light yellow bloom is very pleasing indeed if we get near.

    Cheers,
    Have a nice day.
    ~bangchik and kakdah
    Putrajaya Malaysia

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  5. patut le my bitter gourd tak berbuah, mabuk bunga je...rupa2nya semua bunga jantan...hehehe..

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  6. Bittersweetflavour
    tak semuanya bunga jantan... ada juga yang betina. Tapi yang banyak sekali adalah bunga jantan...

    ReplyDelete

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