What is a petal?

So, in the David George Haskell book, he says that aster-type flowers are not what they seem. The centre is like a vast number of tiny flowers... and the petals, the white bits, are not petals but... what?

I asked ChatGPT....

One of the delights of the daisy family (Asteraceae) is that what looks like a single flower is actually a flower head (capitulum) made up of many tiny flowers.

Take an oxeye daisy, daisy, chamomile, sunflower, or dandelion.

What we think of as the "flower" consists of:

The centre: hundreds of tiny flowers

The yellow centre is made up of many individual flowers called disc florets.

Each disc floret:

• has its own petals (fused into a tube),

• stamens,

• pistil,

• and can produce a seed.

So the centre of a daisy is effectively a dense meadow of tiny flowers.

The "petals": also flowers

The white "petals" around the edge are not petals of a single flower.

They are individual flowers called ray florets.

Each ray floret is a flower whose petals have fused into a strap-like structure called a ligule—the white tongue-shaped part that looks like a petal.

So the white structures are:

• not petals of the whole daisy,

• but the enlarged petal-like portions of individual flowers.

In other words:

A daisy is not one flower with petals around a centre. It is a colony of flowers. The centre is composed of disc flowers, and the apparent petals are ray flowers.

This is why botanists call the whole thing an inflorescence (a flowering structure) rather than a single flower.

Sunflowers make this even clearer

In a sunflower, the central disc contains hundreds or even thousands of tiny flowers, each capable of producing a seed. The yellow "petals" around the edge are ray florets.

What appears to be one giant flower is really an entire community.

A Haskell-like twist

The daisy family repeatedly deceives our perception because it presents a many as one.

We see:

one flower

The pollinator sees:

a landing platform surrounded by hundreds of nectar and pollen sources.

And the plant has evolved so successfully that our minds are still taken in by the illusion.

It's a lovely example of a theme that runs through Haskell's work and resonates with your own interests: what appears to be an individual is often a gathering; what appears singular is composed of relations. The daisy is less a flower than a small floral commons, masquerading as a single bloom.

Me again. Yeah, so, wow.

I bought a thing called something like a lens elongator - I can't remember that either - so that I could get better close-ups.

That led to me taking almost-macro shots of everything I could find.

Buttercup, strawberry, unknown flower, climbing vine thing, hydrangea, bees' favourite flower. Yes, I know: unhelpful.

This is everlasting sweetpea. I have a suspicion that it is pointless for bees. They look at it, but can't get in.

Turns out, they do have nectar and pollen, but it's a bit complicated. ChatGPT again...

One thing that may interest you, given your recurring attention to form and deception in plants: pea flowers are themselves rather ingenious structures. The flower has a standard (the large upper petal), wings, and a keel that conceals the reproductive parts. When a suitably heavy bee lands, the flower is mechanically triggered and pollen is presented to the visitor. So, much as Haskell describes the aster as not being what it seems, the sweet pea flower is also a kind of architectural device—less a static blossom than a little pollinator-operated mechanism.

...

With everlasting sweet pea (Lathyrus latifolius), there can be a mismatch between the flower and the local pollinators.

The flower is designed for relatively large, strong bees, especially bumblebees. To reach the nectar, a bee typically has to land on the wings of the flower and exert enough weight and force to depress the keel, exposing the reproductive parts and allowing access to the reward.

If you're seeing:

• honeybees hovering around,

• small solitary bees investigating,

• bees landing and then leaving,

they may simply be finding the flowers difficult to operate.

There is also another possibility: some cultivated forms of everlasting sweet pea produce less nectar than wild-type plants, so bees inspect them and decide they are not worth the effort.

What are the bees actually doing?

• Hovering and moving on suggests they are assessing the flower visually but not finding an easy reward.

• Landing briefly, then departing suggests they may be trying to access nectar unsuccessfully.

• Bumblebees repeatedly visiting suggests at least some are getting a reward.

One thing worth looking for is nectar robbing. Bumblebees sometimes bite a small hole at the base of pea flowers and drink nectar without entering through the front. Later, honeybees may use the same holes. If you inspect the backs of the flowers, you might occasionally see tiny punctures near the base.

Your observation touches on a broader ecological point: a flower can be listed as "good for pollinators" and yet be useful only to a subset of them. The question is not simply whether nectar exists, but who can reach it.