Types of Flowers

Why flowers look, smell, and bloom the way they do

A garden looks like it is showing off for us. It is not. Almost every flower is really an advertisement, aimed at one tiny customer: the bee, bird, moth, or fly that carries its pollen. The colour, the smell, the shape, even the hour it opens, are all there to catch one kind of visitor. A few flowers even fake the smell of rotting meat to trick flies. Others hide glowing patterns only a bee can see. Once you know who a flower is for, you can almost read it like a sign.

This is a big part of the reason there are so many different types of flowers. There are thousands of pollinators, and each one likes its own colours, smells, and shapes, so over millions of years flowers spread out into countless forms to match them. The huge range of types of flowers in this guide is, in part, a huge range of customers.

The colours of flowers

Colour comes first, because it is the first thing a pollinator sees. A flower builds its colour from a few natural pigments: one family for reds, pinks and purples, another for yellows and oranges. White flowers work differently, scattering the light back rather than using a white pigment, the way snow looks white. Colour is also a message aimed at a particular eye. To a bee, red looks almost black, while birds see red beautifully, so a bright red flower is usually built for a bird, and a blue or purple one is usually calling a bee.

Tap a colour to see what it is made of and who it is really for.

Why some flowers smell and others do not

Smell is the second invitation, for when colour is not enough, and it is timed to the visitor. Light, sweet scents drift through the day for bees and butterflies. Heavy night perfume pours from pale flowers like jasmine and moonflower, guiding moths through the dark. A few flowers pull a nasty trick: the giant rafflesia and the starfish-shaped stapelia smell like rotting meat on purpose, so flies turn up expecting a meal and leave dusted in pollen. Bird flowers usually carry little scent, because birds hunt by sight and barely use their noses.

Why flowers are shaped so differently

A flower's shape is a lock, and only the right visitor holds the key. A long, thin tube hides its nectar at the very bottom, where only a hummingbird's beak or a moth's long tongue can reach. A wide, open flower is the opposite, an easy landing pad for a bee or a beetle. Butterflies like a flat cluster they can stand on while they sip. The shape sets which visitor can feed, and saves the reward for the one that will carry the pollen on.

The hidden patterns only bees can see

Look closely and many flowers have lines or a dark centre pointing straight at the nectar, like the lights along a runway. The strangest part: some of these patterns are invisible to us, yet they glow under ultraviolet light, which bees can see and we cannot. A flower that looks plain yellow to you might show a bold target only a bee can read.

When flowers bloom

Timing is a signal too. A flower gains nothing by opening when its pollinator is asleep, or when every other plant is in bloom and the bees are spoilt for choice, so flowers spread across the calendar. Tap a season.

Plant on purpose

Inside a flower

For all their variety, most flowers are built to the same plan. The same handful of parts appears, in some form, in the rose on a table and the weed in a pavement crack. Tap any part to see what it does.

PetalSepalStamenAntherFilamentStigmaStyleOvaryOvulesReceptacleStem

The coloured part you notice first. Its whole job is to be seen, pulling a visitor in with colour and scent.

Nature loves exceptions: these are strong tendencies, not strict rules. Plenty of flowers welcome every visitor, some are pollinated by the wind, and a few make their colours with different pigments entirely.