A recent study reveals that female plants communicate whether they will accept or reject pollination.

“Unlike an animal’s visual cues about mate selection, a plant’s mate recognition takes place on a molecular level,” said Bruce McClure, associate director of the Christopher S. Bond Life Sciences Center and researcher in the MU Interdisciplinary Plant Group and Division of Biochemistry. “The pollen must, in some way, announce to the pistil its identity, and the pistil must interpret this identity. To do this, proteins from the pollen and proteins from the pistil interact; this determines the acceptance or rejection of individual pollen grains.”