Goat'sbeard pollination

 Flowers of goat'sbeard Tragopogon pratensis always close at around mid-day, giving the plant its alternative name of Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon. Most of the morning visitors seem to be hoverflies, like this marmalade hoverfly. Each inflorescence is made up from numerous individual florets that have a distinctive fail-safe pollination mechanism.

When each flower first opens the stigma and style extend upwards through a ring of stamens, collecting pollen on their outer surface and presenting it to visiting insects. At this point each floret is functionally male, but when the style is fully extended the sigma separates into two lobes that curl outwards, exposing their receptive surface to visiting cross pollinators arriving with pollen from another flower.

Then the stigma lobes continue to curl backwards, sometimes until they touch whatever pollen remains on the style surface, so self-pollinating if cross-pollination has failed.

Either way, the end result is a head of white whiskery seeds, that give the plant its goat'sbeard name, as large as a tennis ball and each seed equipped with a parachute to carry it away on the breeze.