This last one deserves a little explanation…Yes.  Those are ants.  Peonies require that ants eat the outside leaves around the flower buds so that the flowers can bloom.  Kind of creepy, kind of cool.

The trees and flowers are trying to have sex with my car.

It’s really freaking me out.

This morning my car was covered in plant sperm.  Gross.



Ok.  Actually it’s called pollen, and you already knew that, but has not plant evolution taken us to a place where Oak trees and tulips can recognize that they cannot get it on with my Volkswagen??  Apparently not, because the pollen is everywhere…windows, windshield wipers, door handles, air conditioning vents, sun roof.    Do they make condoms for cars?  Or maybe, since in this scenario, my car is being cast in the role of giant plant ovary, it needs a car diaphragm?  My own ridiculousness is making me weary.  Or perhaps it’s all this plant sex.

“Most flowering plants (ninety percent) depend on animals to make the vital pollen-grain delivery. The remaining flowering plants rely on wind and some-times splashing raindrops to ferry pollen, but this is a less precise method. Pollinating animals do the job for a reward: food, usually in the form of nectar. The lessons in this online unit explore the theme of the National Zoo’s Pollinarium exhibition: how plant and animal partners interact to accomplish pollination.   As in many processes in nature, timing is important. The female reproductive part of a flower is receptive to pollen only at certain times of the year. Creatures like insects and birds, which move from flower to flower in search of food, are a fast and often guaranteed way for plants to distribute their pollen.

Both the male and the female reproductive parts of a plant are in the center of the flower. The male, pollen-producing part is called the anther, held aloft by a stalk called a filament. The entire male apparatus is called a stamen. Each pollen grain is unique to its species. The female reproductive part of a plant, the stigma, sits on top of a style, or stalk, which leads to an ovary at the base. The entire female plant mechanism is called a pistil.“  –Smithsonian Education




Warning:  flower illustration rated NC-17


Take note, evil pollen.  Allowing the wind to carry you to my car is a “less precise method”  of spreading your planty DNA.  Precision is important in reproduction – plant, animal, human, automobile, whatever.    Also, the “female reproductive part of a flower” isn’t receptive to your dastardly intentions just any old time of year.  You are wasting your efforts and valuable reproductive time by landing on my car.  There are no stigma or pistils or ovaries on my car.  Occasionally, there are ovaries IN my car, but I’m not even really that enthusiastic about them these days and they belong to me. 

So.  Button up that top button on your shirt, lose the gold chain, shower away the Old Spice, turn off the Barry White, and let the bees and butterflies carry you to where you can actually do some good.  Tell your story walking.  My car is not interested in what you are selling.