Shrinking Violets

Field pansy (Viola arvensis) 

Photograph by Samson Acoca-Pidolle

 

I. 

 

Born in February, I've always been very attached to that colourful garden flower known as the pansy and which belongs to the wider family of violets.   

 

The fact that the English name is derived from the French word pensée - meaning thought - also appeals to me as a philosopher, as it did to D. H. Lawrence, who famously called his late series of little pieces written in 1928-29 Pansies [1].   

 

And so it saddened me to read the latest news out of France that wild pansies are evolving into self-pollinating plants and so producing ever-smaller flowers ...

II.

 

In a recent report in The Guardian, Phoebe Weston explains how rapidly declining insect numbers [2] have obliged pansies to find an alternative method of reproduction and effectively abandon the mutually beneficial relationship formed over millions of years with their six-legged friends [3].

 

Unfortunately, this traps both pansies and their pollinators in a vicious cycle; for when plants make less effort to attract insects and produce less food for them to feed on, this accelerates their decline, which in turn ... well, you get the idea.  

 

A scientific study conducted outside Paris [4], found that the flowers of field pansies are 10% smaller and producing 20% less nectar than thirty years ago and previous work indicated that the number of plants relying on self-pollination has increased by a quarter over the past two decades. 

 

The speed of this real time evolution has, apparently, surprised researchers - just as it has disheartened me, for I don't want to live in a world of shrinking violets in which insects no longer gaily buzz ...

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See the post entitled 'Pansies: Brief Notes on D. H. Lawrence's Excremental Aesthetic' (5 Oct 2019): click here.

 

[2]  Falling insect numbers have been reported by studies across Europe. One German study (conducted on a nature reserve) found that there were 75% fewer insects in 2016 compared to 1989. See the post entitled 'Insecticide and the Eco-Apocalypse' (21 Oct 2017): click here. 

[3] Phoebe Weston, 'Flowers "giving up" on scarce insects and evolving to self-pollinate, say scientists', The Guardian (20 Dec 2023): click here. 

[4] See Samson Acoca-Pidolle, Perrine Gauthier, Louis Devresse, Antoine Deverge Merdrignac, Virginie Pons, and Pierre-Olivier Cheptou, 'Ongoing convergent evolution of a selfing syndrome threatens plant–pollinator interactions', New Phytologist (Dec 2023): click here.