• Question: are there female trees?

    Asked by coolragz to Bob, Katie, Nisha, Sallie, Vee on 27 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Sallie Baxendale

      Sallie Baxendale answered on 27 Jun 2012:

      Yes – there are male and female plants, including trees. You can sometimes tell the difference in the flowers that they produce. Often, in trees, the differences are very subtle and you need to be an expert to work it out.

    • Photo: Bob Bonwick

      Bob Bonwick answered on 2 Jul 2012:

      I believe that most plants either have seperate or combined genders. I’m growing mellons at the moment and they are male and female, they need bees to pollinate (swap genetic material) in order to fruit (their children so to speak) and continue their existance. Trees I undersdand don’t need to cross pollinate as they are asexual (no gender to speak of, but also both), this isn’t to say they don’t share genetic material in similar ways to plantsm like my mellons. Sallie said it best “you need to be an expert to work it out”… I’m not an expert in trees, but I’ve looked it up.

    • Photo: Vee Mitchell

      Vee Mitchell answered on 2 Jul 2012:

      I think there must be – apples trees for example won’t bear fruit if there is no other apple trees in the area, so the don’t seem able to self pollinate……

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