CBSE Class 9 Answered

The flowers exhibit variety of shapes and sizes for the purpose of attracting insects for pollination. Flower pollination is aided by the very shape of the flower, and the way in which the insects come in contact with its sexual parts. Flowers are often shaped to provide a landing platform for visiting insects or to force them to brush against anthers and stigmas.

Different kinds of insects and birds have different strategies for sucking nectar, thereby collecting pollen from the flowers at the same time.

• Insects such as moths and butterflies have a long tongue for sipping nectar which they use like a drinking straw. Flowers pollinated by moths and butterflies often are shaped like a bell or funnel and store their nectar too far back for shorter-tongued insects to reach. These insects mostly pollinate campanulate (bell-shaped) or funnelform (funnel-shaped) flowers.  Example: Campanula cochlearifolia, Cyrtanthus elatus.
• The flowers pollinated by bees have a landing platform such as two-lipped petals found in the flowers of mint family or falsely two-lipped petals such as the fused petals of banners and keel found in the pea family. Bees mostly pollinate papilionaceous (pea shaped) flowers. Example: Parochetus communis.