Dandelion fruits

The dandelion is one of the best known anemochorous dispersing plants: it is the wind, in fact, that collects and disperse the plume-like seeds that make up its blowballs. Even motionless organisms par excellence need to disperse, at least during some phases of their life cycle. In plants this happens at fertilization, when pollen travels away, and at the time of reproduction, when it needs to be guaranteed to seeds the opportunity to move away from the mother plant, not to enter into spatial competition. To rely on wind is in fact one of the most used, very low-cost dispersion methods, developing seeds and fruits with umbel- or sail-like structures that can be lifted up and sustained by air currents.