The Magazine of The Sierra Club
Symbiosis in Focus
Biologists turned photographers explore our diverse world of flowers
A monkey beetle (Scarabaeidae) sits on a terracotta gazania flower (Gazania krebsiana).
A lesser violetear (Colibri cyanotus) feeds on loranthaceous mistletoe flowers (Psittacanthus ramiflorus).
A tree bumblebee (Bombus hypnorum) visits a hollyhock (Alcea rosea) for its nectaries.
A mating pair of a pyrrhocorid bug (Probergrothius sexpunctatus) pollinates the female cones of Welwitschia mirabilis, a gymnosperm endemic to the Namib Desert in southern Africa.
A South African iris (Lapeirousia oreogena) displays white arrow-like nectar guides that direct pollinators to its nectaries.
A green bottle blow fly (Lucilia) mops up the nectar on a Canadian goldenrod (Solidago canadensis).
South Africa’s Cape sugarbird (Promerops cafer), which feeds on nectar, sits on a pincushion protea (Leucospermum cordifolium).
Cleavers (Galium aparine), also known as goosegrass, catchweed, or stickyweed, use their tiny hooked hairs to attach themselves to passing animals in order to disperse their seeds.
An Underwood’s long-tongued bat (Hylonycteris underwoodi) pollinates a Costa Rican bat flower (Macrocarpaea valerioi, Gentianaceae).
A long-billed hummingbird called a collared inca (Coeligena torquata) visits the blue tubular flowers of Iochroma calycinum.
Why are flowers colorful? Why are some fragrant and others odorous? Why do they even exist? Michael and Patricia Fogden ponder these questions and others in the preface of their new book, The Natural History of Flowers (Texas A&M University Press, 2018). To answer them, the biologists turned photographers headed for the mountains of Costa Rica, the deserts of southern Africa, the rainforests of South America, and elsewhere across our vibrant and floral planet.
The result: a comprehensive collection of 200-plus color photographs and science-based text exploring flowers themselves and the ecosystems in which they flourish.
The Fogdens started their careers as research biologists. Michael researched birds as a doctoral student at Oxford. Patricia studied bats at London University and went on to teach zoology at the University of Hong Kong. In the 1970s they began their careers as independent nature writers and photographers and have used their research backgrounds and cameras to look into the intricacies of the natural world ever since.
The Natural History of Flowers delivers a sweeping survey of flowers by getting in close to their relationships in nature. With macro lenses and quick shutters, the Fogdens show the striking details and stunning vibrancy of some of the bugs, birds, bats, and other species that rely on flowers for food—and on which flowers and their plants depend for pollination and propagation. After all, the world of the flower—displayed through specks of nectar on a blow fly and the fluttering wings of a hummingbird—is one of symbiosis.