Flowers and insects are two worlds, rich in shapes and colors, linked by inextricable ties. What is a flower and what role does it play in the fate of a plant?

Take the well-known apple blossom (Fig. 1). In it you will find a green cup and delicate pink petals. This is the garment of the flower, its corolla, and inside the corolla there are stamens and a pistil. The stamens produce flower dust. The lower part of the pistil, the so-called ovary, turns into a fruit over time, but only when flower dust particles fall on the pistil, pollinate it (fertilize).

However, this is not yet an answer to the question of what a flower is and from what it originated.

A flower is a transformed leafy shoot, strongly shortened and compressed, adapted for plant propagation. The flower is therefore the reproductive organ of the plant. The calyx, petals, stamens and pistil are nothing more than modified leaves.

What do insects have to do with flowers?

To answer this question, I will talk about one extremely interesting experience, which was conducted by the English naturalist Charles Darwin.

He took two beds, divided them with a partition, and sowed clover seeds in each. The clover has bloomed. Then he covered one of the beds with a thick net, and left the other open. In the flowers on both beds, fruits were set. But where the bed was covered with a net, there were much less fruits and seeds than in an open bed. Darwin explained this by the fact that over open bed bumblebees and bees flew, but they could not fly up to the bed covered with a net.

Having made this assumption, he did an experiment with two blossoming poppies grown in pots. One of them pollinated with his own pollen, and the other Darwin pollinated with pollen taken from another poppy. The flower, pollinated with its own pollen, gave a small poppy capsule with very few seeds, small, poorly germinating, giving frail, non-viable shoots. The flower, which was artificially pollinated with the pollen of another poppy, gave a large capsule of multinucleated good seeds from which large viable plants grew. So it was found that self-pollination for plants is less beneficial than cross-pollination, that is, pollination of a flower with the pollen of another flower of the same kind. Knowing this, we can immediately clearly imagine what is the connection between the world of flowers and the world of insects.

In orchard, over newly blossoming trees, in a flower garden, over bright fragrant flower beds, over the unmown meadow, which is covered with a variegated carpet of flowers, all kinds of winged insects are flying. There is a non-turn, a fluffy shaggy bumblebee, and a slender wasp, and a hardworking bee, and a motley little bug, and a butterfly. There are especially many butterflies. Playing in the sun with their bright colored wings, butterflies float in the air lightly and gracefully: variegated polychrome flowers, yellow lemongrass, long-tailed swallowtail, silvery mother-of-pearl and many long-bellied sphinx butterflies. They all fly from flower to flower, from one tree to another.

What for? What do they want? - They feed. The food of winged gourmets is hidden in the bright corollas of flowers. Here, first of all, there is a lot of pollen, which part of the insects feed on. Here are light drops of sweet juice - nectar. Pollen and nectar serve as bait for insects. But by collecting pollen and nectar, insects are of great benefit to plants, as they contribute to their cross-pollination.

Plants are covered bright colors, spread a delicate aroma, produce pollen and nectar not so that we can admire them, inhale their aroma and feast on fragrant honey. A bright outfit of pale pink carnation, blue bell, bright red poppy, golden yellow buttercup and other flowers, their charming smell and sweet nectar, nature has for centuries created insects for the world in the interests of the plants themselves.

The bright, conspicuous color of flowers and their aroma serve as an insect signal by which they can see and feel from afar where the food they are looking for is located. Flying from flower to flower, insects cross-pollinate them. And cross-pollination provides the plant with healthy, viable offspring.

On plants with small, inconspicuous flowers, flowers usually grow in the form of baskets, umbrellas, panicles and earrings, which makes the flowers noticeable to insects (Fig. 2).

Trees such as spruce, pine, oak, alder, and willow do not have bright, noticeably colored flowers. But they get this a large number of pollen, that it sometimes flies in the air in the form of small yellowish clouds. Cross-pollination in these plants is achieved with the assistance of a gentle breeze. The wind carries pollen from the flowers of some trees to the flowers of others.

Finally, let's take the linden tree. Its flowers are very modest and inconspicuous in appearance, but the linden is very fragrant, and the smell attracts insects to itself.

But not only the bright, conspicuous "outfit", not only the smell, the abundance of flower dust and nectar contribute to cross-pollination. The flower, by its shape and structure of individual parts (stamens, pistils, petals), is adapted so that the insect can comfortably settle on the petals, make its way into the corolla, load with pollen and, having flown to another flower of the same kind, leave this pollen on its pistil.

The arrangement of the pistil and stamens is often such that the flower cannot pollinate its own pistil. This is facilitated not only by the location, but also by the ripening time of the stamens and pistils. It usually happens like this: when the pistil is ripe and ready for fertilization, the stamens on the same flower are not yet ripe, and vice versa. When the pistil has already withered, only then a large amount of flower dust ripens on the stamens.

It is clear that under such circumstances self-pollination cannot occur, and the plant needs the help of wind or an insect to transfer pollen from one flower to another.

In the flower of curtsianella, the anthers ripen before the stigma becomes capable of pollination, so self-pollination cannot occur. When the anthers mature and open, the pollen contained in them spills out onto the warty surface of the immature stigma. Then the serpentine column unwinds somewhat and rests against the vault, becomes longer, and the stigma covered with a colored stigma rests against the vault of the corolla. In this position, the column and stigma are projectile ready to act at the first push from the outside.

A bumblebee flying over the red curtsianella flowers slightly brushes the corolla. Then the "projectile" starts to move (Fig. 3): the column of the pistil quickly straightens out, jumps out and scatters the pollen lying on its stigma in all directions. In this form, he flies to another curzianella, and then there is a flower with an open corolla, from the middle of which a fully ripe stigma of the flower protrudes, the bumblebee involuntarily gives him part of his unnecessary burden and thus perfectly pollinates curcianella.

The flowers of the well-known beaver breeding have the same structure as the flowers of peas and beans. In each flower, the petals form a large "sail", a "boat" lying under it and two "wings" on the sides. Inside the corolla are stamens and a pistil.

An insect arrives, for example a bee, sits on a boat in which the stamens are hidden, and, pressing on it with its weight, makes the entire bundle of stamens jump out of the boat and douse the bee with yellow pollen. When a bee "powdered" in this way flies to another beaver flower, it leaves several dust particles on its pistil. This is enough for the flower to be fertilized and give a fruit with seeds.

And here is the well-known sage flower (Fig. 4). It is even more curious. Its corolla consists of two lips. The lower lip is a small area or balcony on which a bumblebee can freely sit. The upper lip looks like a vault, under which the stamens and pistil sit. Each stamen is a rather original device: a crossbar hangs on a thin thread, which can, as if on hinges, rise and fall. At one end of this bar are two sacs filled with pollen.

Rice. 4. Two-lipped sage flower: a - flower in section: 1 - pistil, 2 - stamen; 6 - a flower into which a bumblebee climbed; c - anthers in the normal position; d - anthers dropped

A bumblebee flies to such a flower. Trying to get into the depths of the flower in order to get nectar from there, he touches the lower end of the crossbar with his head. The bar goes down, hits the upper end against the back of the bumblebee, pollen spills out of the sacs. The bumblebee then flies to another of the same flower, carrying a lot of dust particles on its back. It touches the tip of the flower's pistil with its back, dust particles fall on it, and the flower is pollinated.

Even more surprising are the Kirkazon flowers. A small flower of this plant has the shape of an elongated tube expanding upward. In the lower part of it there are stamens and a pistil. The middle part is dotted with small bristles that look into the flower.

The flower attracts insects with a rather bright color. Here came a small fly. It freely makes its way into the flower, because the bristles in the tube let it go down. Having drunk the nectar, she is going to fly back - and turns out to be a prisoner: the bristles get in the way. She rushes about, struggles, trying to break free. In the meantime, the stamens ripen, the pollen spills out of them, and the hairs blocking the fly's path to freedom wither, and our fly, powdered with pollen, freely flies out to again get into another flower of the same and transfer the pollen to its pistil.

Particularly striking is the structure of the flowers of orchids - inhabitants of hot tropical countries. Orchids are the brightest representatives of the flower world (Fig. 5). They are found occasionally in temperate countries. They are bred in greenhouses and are highly prized. And in hot countries, you can count literally several thousand species of orchids. How varied in shape and color are their flowers!

The botanist Kohn describes them very beautifully and figuratively.

Each of the orchids has a "dress" of a special cut. All colors can be seen on them, from the purest white or pale pink to dark purple, bright yellow and red, and in the most original combinations. Some orchids are spotty, like panthers, others are striped like tigers, and still others are dotted with bizarre patterns. Some look out of the grass, others have wrapped around the trunks of trees and sway there on the highest branches.

One orchid seems to stick out a crimson tongue, in another, the flower looks like a bull's head with curled horns, in the third it looks like a disgusting spider. Finally, there are orchids that look like bumblebees, flies, wasps and mosquitoes. There are those who seem to float in the air in the form of butterflies. Others look like white doves or sparkling hummingbirds.

But botanists are well aware that this variety of shapes and colors contains the same adaptation for cross-pollination, which is unchanged in all orchids.

Let's dwell on just one such flower. These are the orchids found in our country, the so-called night violets. On the long arrow of the plant, spikelets are located white fragrant flowers. Each of them has a pistil and stamens, that is, the usual reproductive organs of any flower. Each of the pair of flower stamens is club-like, and both sit together on a thin membrane attached to the bottom of the flower. On the sides of these two stamens, at their base, there is a two-lobed stigma of the pistil.

When a butterfly flies up to this flower, launches its proboscis into it, and then, having sucked the nectar, pulls out the proboscis back, then at the tip of it you can see two stamens adhering to the proboscis of the butterfly. Having reached another flower of the same kind, the butterfly involuntarily touches the tips of the stamens sitting on its proboscis to the stigma of the pistil of the second flower and leaves specks of dust on it. Everything is adapted for the flower to be pollinated, fertilized and set fruit.

In flowers, everything is adapted for cross-pollination; the same is observed in insects: their structure and lifestyle correspond to the structural features of those flowers from which they take bribes, contributing to their pollination. The bee and the bumblebee have jaws and legs designed so that they can deftly lick honey; along the way, insects are powdered with pollen of a flower. The mouth of butterflies is not at all the same as that of other insects. Moths do not gnaw or chew food, as many beetles do, they do not lick it like bees, but suck honey from the corolla of flowers; therefore, instead of sting or tongue, like bees, they have a long proboscis. The proboscis of butterflies is to a certain extent adapted to the structure of various flowers, from which they draw nectar.

From all that has been said here it is clear that a close connection has indeed been established between the world of flowers and the world of insects: the life of some is connected with the life of others.

Millions of years ago, plants with bright, fragrant flowers did not exist on our planet. They developed after insects such as bees, bumblebees and especially moths appeared. The emergence of flowering plants is associated in turn with the emergence of many other insects. We can see this connection at almost every turn: some plants are designed in such a way that only certain species of insects can cross-pollinate them. This can be shown especially clearly in the following example.

In Brazil, an orchid grows, in which the nectar is placed in a special tube called a spur; this tube is about 30 centimeters long.

Since cross-pollination is always beneficial for a plant, and insects contribute to such pollination, there must be a butterfly that would have a proboscis 30 centimeters long, because only such a long proboscis can get the nectar lying in the spur of this orchid. Such a butterfly really exists. This is a twilight sphinx butterfly. The coiled proboscis of this rather large butterfly is a spiral; when unfolded, it has a length of about 30 centimeters. The butterfly feeds on the nectar of these flowers and simultaneously contributes to their cross-pollination (Fig. 6). Many interesting and instructive things can be told on this topic, and then, probably, the colorful world of flowers and insects would seem to you in its complex interconnection even more interesting.

In the light of the knowledge that modern science possesses, nature itself in all its diversity would appear to you even more majestic, even more beautiful.

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INSECTS
GBDOU No. 37, St. Petersburg, Nevsky District, educator Mashoshina Natalya Nikolaevna

Slide 2

Tasks:
To form a realistic idea of ​​the nature around us, the desire to become a friend of nature, to preserve and protect it. To form in children elementary ideas about insects (butterfly, ant, beetle, bee, grasshopper), their structure, methods of movement. To cultivate a respect for living things. Develop emotional responsiveness Build research skills.

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Butterflies
There is a very wide variety of butterflies on Earth. Their wings are covered with small scales that contain dyes and provide wonderful coloration to butterflies. Butterflies feed on the nectar of flowers.

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Peacock eye
The peacock eye is perhaps the most recognizable member of the nymphalid family. Four bright spots are a good defensive coloration to scare off enemies. Few willing to take risks own health eating breakfast by a strange four-eyed person.

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Tiger sailboat
Tiger sailboat - resident North America and for his proud beauty he was honored to be the symbol of the four states. It feeds on nectar, and its larvae feed on the foliage of aspens and poplars. Thick and awkward, they are very resourceful and know how to stand up for themselves: in case of danger, they splash with liquid with an unpleasant odor.

Slide 6

Dragonflies
At the very shore of an overgrown reservoir, among reeds, reeds and horsetails, they quickly scurry in pursuit of more small insects dragonflies. These creatures have an elongated body, a head with large compound eyes, each with over 30,000 separate lenses, and two pairs of transparent, elongated wings. Dragonflies - daytime predatory insects... More than 3 thousand species are known. Dragonflies lay their larvae in water. The larvae of these insects are terrible underwater predators that attack even small fish. After 1-3 years, the larvae will turn into adult dragonflies capable of living on land.

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Beauties

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Rocker

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Grasshoppers

Hiding among the thick grass, this insect makes itself felt with a peculiar sound. A grasshopper has a special vein on its wings, which it guides, like a bow, along the membrane in the form of a round mirror and makes chirping sounds. The color of the grasshopper is in good harmony with the background of the grass, so you won't immediately find it. The insect jumps well, complementing its movement by flying with the help of its wings. Grasshoppers feed exclusively on animal food.

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Bee
The bee is a “great worker”. It can often be seen in meadows and gardens. She lives with a family. The bee colony includes up to 80 thousand bees, the main part of which is made up of worker bees. The family must have one female queen, capable of laying eggs, and several hundred males - drones. Worker bees build honeycombs from wax, in which the larvae are kept. In spring, summer and autumn, bees store honey intensively. Honey, propolis, bee venom and other products of the bee family have great importance In human life.

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ladybug
We know the ladybug as a small red bug with black dots. In fact, this insect has a very varied color. At first glance, these bugs seem peaceful, but most of them are active and voracious predators. They destroy a lot of various pests of the garden and field - aphids, scale insects, scale insects, small larvae and pupae. During the day, this predator exterminates from 50 to 270 aphids, which is of great benefit to the human economy. The ladybug itself is inedible for most birds and animals.

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Caterpillar
A caterpillar is a butterfly larva that hatches from an egg. She, unlike her parent, has a very unattractive appearance. Caterpillars have a soft, elongated body. They have no wings. Many are brightly colored and have beautiful pubescence or outgrowths. Most species have silk-secreting glands with which they create a cocoon. They feed mainly on plant foods. The caterpillar is malicious pest... She has many enemies. It is a special delicacy for birds, but with the help of various tricks they manage to escape from death. Some caterpillars look like bird droppings, others are twigs and twigs, and still others disguise themselves as the color of the leaves. The caterpillar of the crayfish moth can even spray the enemy with acid. Having reached a certain age, the caterpillars pupate and soon turn into a beautiful creature - a butterfly.

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Ants
Ants are familiar to everyone. They are widespread everywhere, except for Antarctica and the Far North. About 10 thousand species of these insects are known. Their body sizes are from 8 to 30 mm. Coloring from light yellow to black. Most species have developed poisonous glands that secrete formic acid. Their communities are more complex than that of bees, families number up to 1 million individuals in an anthill. They also have their own pastures. They breed aphids and milk them. These insects feed on invertebrates, flower nectar, mushrooms, plant seeds and the secretion of aphids.

Ekaterina Vanina
Presentation "Insects"

Lesson topic:"Insects".

Software content. Introduce children to the diverse world of insects. Learn to highlight characteristics insects. Develop curiosity. To foster a desire to preserve the diversity of the surrounding world.

Butterfly. In nature, there are many species of butterflies: cabbage white, urticaria, admiral, peacock eye, etc. The color and shape of some makes them almost invisible among the plants. Others, on the contrary, have bright markings that scare off enemies. The flowers of many plants are especially attractive to butterflies due to their bright color and aroma. Adult butterflies feed on nectar, which they suck from flowers with their long proboscis. And some butterflies do not feed at all, as they live for a very short time. They use the energy of food eaten when they were still caterpillars. The lifespan of adult butterflies is from several hours to 11 months.

Spider. Spiders are interesting garden dwellers. In order to catch insects, most spiders weave webs. Spiders predict the weather correctly. Folk omens: "If a long and viscous web is good weather", "The web spreads over the plants - to the warmth."

Ladybug. In the midst of spring, when many voracious lovers of greenery appear in the world of insects, they come to the rescue ladybugs... They were named so because, in case of danger, droplets of a caustic liquid of a whitish-yellowish color, reminiscent of milk, appear on the folds of the legs. Ladybug eats aphids - worst enemy plants. The red coloring of the wings of a ladybug is a warning, the birds do not touch it.

Chafer. This beetle appears in May, which is why it was named May. Like all beetles, the May beetle's wings are covered from above by rigid elytra. When intending to fly, the beetle lifts the elytra and begins to vigorously breathe air through the respiratory tubes. Having "pumped up" air, the beetle spreads its wings and, setting them in rapid motion, rises into the air. Rigid elytra are motionless and raised high during flight. May beetles usually fly in the evening, at dusk, with a strong buzzing and land mainly on deciduous trees, which gnaw on the leaves. May beetle is harmful insects for the economy of the person.

Ant. Ants see poorly, they are helped by antennae, with which they feel everything that occurs on the way. The overwhelming majority of ants are predators. They feed their larvae with animal food, mainly insects. Ants love to feast on birch or maple sap. Ants carry 10 times their own body weight.

Grasshopper. Grasshoppers are green and brown. They are cleverly camouflaged: green - in green grass, brown - closer to the roadsides. All grasshoppers are similar to each other - they have long, strong legs, characteristic straight wings, females have “swords” or sabers behind them - ovipositor, with which they lay their testicles in the ground, in plant stems or in leaves. All grasshoppers "sing" with their wings, have "ears" on their front legs, and jump well.

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Presentation on the topic "INSECTS"

Completed by the teacher of the MDOU day nursery school №180

Donetsk educator Jerina Irina Borisovna

Insects

Insects live everywhere. In deserts and tropics, in the taiga and Antarctica.

The main signs of an insect

Six legs

Three parts of the body - head, chest, abdomen

In most cases, insects have wings.

Breast

Head

Abdomen

Insect feeding

What insects do not eat! Butterflies - with flower nectar, cockroaches - with bread, flies - with meat, mosquitoes - with blood.

Insects protect themselves

To escape from enemies, insects have developed protective mechanisms

Camouflage uniform

Deterrent coloring

Camouflage paint

Use of poison

Dragonfly

A blue airplane landed on a yellow dandelion?

Housewife

Flies over the lawn

Will bother over a flower -

He will share the medic.

The bee carries nectar into the hive, from which it makes honey. And as building material uses wax secreted by glands on the abdomen and propolis (bee glue), which insects extract from plant buds.

Domestic bees live in hives

Wild bees build nests in trees

Grasshopper

From a branch to a path, From a blade of grass to a blade of grass Jumping a spring - A green back.

They "sing" with their wings and all have "ears" on their front legs. All grasshoppers jump well, pushing off with their legs, descend slowly with the help of their wings.

In the forest near the stump there is bustle, running around: The working people are busy all day.

Ants live everywhere, from city apartments to Antarctica. Ants are almost omnivorous.

Firefly

Not the sun, not fire, but shining.

Like a tiger: a mustache, striped, And the sting is sharper than a dagger. Buzzing, flew up into the heavens Sweet lover - ...

Unlike bees, wasps do not store honey. Wasps often build nests in the ground.

NS hiding in the corners

Hinders sleep at night

Doesn't eat for weeks

What is the name of the pest?

Cockroaches eat almost everything. Regular food, books, leather clothes, even house flowers. Surprisingly hardy and tenacious. A cockroach can eat nothing for a whole month.

Water strider

Lives on the surface of the water in summer, Under the bark, without fuss, while away the winter. The course of her long legs is a measure of the water surface. Who else could slide like that? Only…

The purpose of the thematic week: to form and expand the elementary ideas of children about insects and flowering plants, about the features of their structure, characteristic features and ways of caring for them. Develop general and manual motor skills, visual and auditory attention. To foster a desire to protect the surrounding nature. From an early age, we introduce children to the nature around us, which gives us beauty and delights us at any time of the year. During walks and outdoor recreation, we never cease to admire what we saw and convey our feelings and thoughts to children. We acquaint with all natural phenomena, its constituent parts. First of all, it is worth drawing the attention of children to flowers and insects from the “immediate environment”. These are flowers: dandelions, chamomile, calendula, tulip; insects: ladybugs, caterpillars, butterflies, grasshoppers. Observing flowers and insects, children will not only acquire new knowledge, but also learn to think, analyze, compare, reason.

How in kindergarten, and at home the baby needs to demonstrate different kinds insects and flowers, talk about the conditions of their life and habitat, about the dangers and benefits of certain species for humans. All this not only develops the cognitive interest of children, but also expands the active speech reserve, and also forms imaginative thinking. Cognitive interest in children from the very beginning early age and the maintenance of this interest by adults can have far-reaching and very important consequences. Children will develop memory, speech, emotionality and sensuality will form, kindness, responsiveness and a desire to take care of the surrounding nature will be brought up. A lot depends on us adults. Can we teach our children to love and care for nature? Will we answer thousands of questions from our why?

The simplest and in a convenient way studying insects and flowers for children are cards with their images. All stories, poems about flowers and insects for children must be accompanied by a demonstration of illustrations. Studying insects and flowers, we tell children where flowers grow, where insects live, find similarities and differences, how they can be useful for humans and other species of living beings. In our work, we tried to give children the idea that insects cannot exist without flowers, and flowers cannot exist without insects. Flowers provide food for insects. Insects, collecting nectar, pollinate plants and due to this, fruits and seeds appear.

Nature gives us beauty, to appreciate and comprehend which we help our children. Telling and showing Interesting Facts from the life of plants and insects, we help children learn a lot of new and interesting things. We expand the horizons of children and form a holistic picture of the world. We cultivate love for nature and respect for it! For children, this is a whole small world living in harmony with the big world wildlife. We adults need to maintain the child's sincere interest in the world around us. Dear adults, watch the wildlife with children. After all, it is observation that allows you to show children nature in natural conditions. All good things in people from childhood! How to awaken the drains of good? Touch nature with all your heart: Surprise, learn, love! / N. Lukonin./