theplant-connection.com Blog

We all have symbiotic relationships.  I depend on my clients for income and they depend on me to keep their plants alive. Well last month I saw a great  film as part of a pesticide recertification class. It was a PBS offering called “The Seedy Side of Plants”. There were several fascinating stories but one was about a symbiotic  relationship that aardvarks have with a subterranian melon that grows in Africa.

This melon blossoms and grows during the rainy season and sends it’s fruit deep into the African soil. The fruit grows and stays underground. The only animal that can detect it’s presence are aardvarks. Aardvarks are very slow animals and are esy prey for their predators. To get their moisture without having to go to the water hole and meet their enemies, aardvarks can smell  these melons, tunnel down and get their moisture needs met by eating the melon. They then do the melon a favor and spread their seeds around through their natural digestive process. Without the aardvark, the melon would perish and vice versa.  If you love wild plant facts, this is the production to find and watch.