NEBRASKAland Magazine is dedicated to outstanding photography and informative writing with an engaging mix of articles and photos highlighting Nebraska’s outdoor activities, parklands, wildlife, history and people.
Issue link: https://mag.outdoornebraska.gov/i/1545575
40 Nebraskaland • May 2026 w hat comes to mind when you think of a flower? If you're like most, you probably picture something that looks like a daisy or sunflower, with multiple colorful petals radiating out from a center disk. While many do look like that, flowers come in a dizzying array of designs, all of which are intricate and beautiful, even if they might not look immediately familiar. Many people are surprised to learn that grasses have flowers. They must, of course, since grasses make seeds, and seeds come from flowers. Grass flowers are tiny, and don't have big, showy petals or attractive scents. For all that, they're still beautiful, even if you have to look closely to appreciate them. The primary function of a flower is to produce seeds for reproduction. Seed production usually requires an exchange of pollen, so flowers have to both produce pollen and capture pollen from other flowers. Usually both those functions happen on the same flower, but some plants produce separate male flowers — which make pollen — and female flowers, which receive it and create seeds. To move pollen from one flower to another, most plants use one of two methods; they either induce animals to move the pollen for them, or they rely on the wind to do it. Flowers that rely on animals have to work for that help. Many make themselves big and colorful and/or produce strong odors to attract visitors. Visiting animals are rewarded with food — either pollen, nectar or both. In return, those visitors carry some pollen away with them that hopefully gets rubbed off on another flower and stimulates seed production. It takes a lot of energy for plants to produce big, attractive petals, essential oils and sweet nectar. Because of that energy expenditure, lots of plants choose the cheaper option of throwing their pollen to the wind. Instead of investing in all those extras, wind-pollinated plants stick to the basics. They have anthers that produce pollen and stigmas that capture it. Simple, elegant and inexpensive. Grasses — along with sedges and rushes — are wind-pollinated, including grass species we use as row crops such as corn, wheat, rice and oats. They're joined by many tree species, including pines, junipers, oaks, walnuts and others. Ragweed is probably the most infamous of the wind-pollinated plants because of the number of people who suffer from hay fever, but other broadleaf plants like plantain, nettles and hops are at least mostly wind-pollinated. Look closely at grass flowers and two structures stand out. The first is the anther, which contains the pollen the flower is releasing into the wind. Anthers are usually long and slender, often nearly cylindrical in shape. A single anther can contain thousands of pollen grains. The second structure is the feathery stigma, which catches wind-borne pollen. The stigma is connected to the ovary, where seeds will be produced, if everything goes well. Red anthers dangle from big bluestem flowers. Plains oval sedge Indian grass Buffalo grass