Flowers lure pollinators. How amazing.

Finally made it back to the east coast world of snow, and I absolutely love it!  Who would've thought that I'd head to Montana and Yellowstone NP to get my winter snow fix, and end up having way more snow at home? 

Okay, I won't bore you with my trazillion photos from Yellowstone, but I do want to share a very unique and poetic definition of 'pollination' that I read in a book by the extraordinary person and Yellowstone photographer, Tom Murphy, in his book entitled The Light of Spring:  Seasons of Yellowstone -

"A plant gets help dispersing its offspring by producing edible fruit, berries, and seeds.  But flowers:  what a clever way for a plant to recruit insects, birds, and bats to participate in its reproduction.  The most creative, selfish, and devious thing a plant does is to produce flowers with aromas, colors, and shapes which attract an entirely different kingdom of creatures into its parlor.  It could be inviting catastrophe, but by giving an animal a bit of sweets, a root-bound plant gets clever, active creatures to carry its genes to the handsome neighboring plant three feet or three miles away.  The animal thinks it is stealing nectar, but the nectar was actually just the bait.  The plan all along was to have a wild excess of pollen and sweets laid over the path or flung over the bodies of the welcomed thieves and passively let them go on their way to steal other's nectar.  Scuffling creatures unintentionally carry pollens to all the parlors they visit, much to the plant's benefit and the animal's total ignorance."

Wow.  How awesome is that.