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Planting for Pollinators

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The ARS Bee Research Lab in Beltsville, Maryland, maintains a Pollinator Garden, which is an educational tool showing a real-life example of the codependent nature of our food ecosystem and the value pollinators provide to it. Pollinators, such as honey bees, collect nectar and pollen from flowers, and they in turn provide flowers a means to reproduce by spreading pollen from one flower to the next in a process called pollination. As a result, plants produce fruit and continue their lifecycle and consumers reap the rewards with fresh produce. – By Peggy Greb, ARS Office of Communications.

A swallowtail butterfly feeds on a pick zinnia flower

A swallowtail butterfly feeds on a zinnia flower. Most of the swallowtail butterflies have tails on their hind wings, which resemble the tails of the swallow family of birds. (Peggy Greb, D3950-7)


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