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A favourite for #WildflowerHour - Wild Carrot, aka Queen Anne's Lace. Note the distinctive flower-head with a single red floret among all the white ones. At #Goring in #Oxfordshire earlier in the week. #Bloomscrolling #botany #plants #flowers #wildflowers #photography
@petersketch
Lovely. Always wondered about that red dot in the middle. Does anyone know that that's all about?
@ancientsounds I think there's a theory that it may be about making insects think there's already an insect feeding on it. I don't know if anyone's ever studied whether that's true, though.
@petersketch Sounds like a good experiment; it can't be difficult to grow a load and nip out 50% of the red dots
[edit]
Oh, it's been done:
https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=c77b31ab7c56c38a4d168679f7f16fb39c87d622