Painting Petals

Before light
paints its first streak
across the bloom,
petals hum
with muted maps –
their ink held within
the bone-leafed script.
A thousand hand-shapes
reaching out,
to trace the edge.
Somewhere below
the bee-drummers wait,
each wing-beat a call
to find their path
in threads of colour
and form.
Between them,
a pulse-cage of time –
opening,
closing,
until the pattern sings.

This poem is inspired by recent research, which has found that flowers use adjustable petal designs to attract pollinators.

Flowers use colourful patterns to attract pollinators like bees. These patterns are often made up of distinct areas on the petals, where cells develop different colours, shapes, and textures. While researchers have studied the factors and pathways that lead to these characteristics, it has remained unclear how plants decide which parts of the petal should display these traits. In particular, how these boundaries between different areas on a petal are established early in development has been a mystery.

Recent research on Hibiscus trionum, a plant with a distinctive bullseye pattern on its petals, sheds light on this process. Scientists discovered that the position of the bullseye is determined well before it becomes visible. Using computational models, they explored how the pattern proportions remain consistent even as the petals grow dramatically in size. By studying genetic variants, they found that plants can adjust the boundaries of these patterns during early development or modify growth later to achieve different bullseye sizes. These changes are important, as experiments show that pollinators such as buff-tailed bumblebees can recognise and favour flowers with specific bullseye sizes, helping them find food more efficiently.