Honeybee with milkweed pollinia stuck to its legs. |
Those orange "blobs" are called pollinia. Unlike most flowers that disperse their pollen as individual grains, Milkweed plants concentrate their pollen grains into two connected sacs (or pollinia). When a pollinating insect lands on a Milkweed flower this sticky pair of pollinia (the whole structure is called a pollinarium) can easily become attached to the insects legs. As the insect moves from one flower to another the poliinarium can become dislodged and pollinates the flower where it is left.
I never knew this!
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