> From: "Rob Sandelin" <floriferous at msn.com>
>
> My students have observed that the highest placed flowers are first
> Salmonberry flowers to open on 89% of Salmonberry bushes they checked. Not
> sure if this is due to hummingbird attraction but it would seem to fit the
> idea.

Mmm. I hate to throw a spanner into the works, but the highest placed
flowers almost certainly also experience the most degree-days and so SHOULD
fruit out and ripen first. The high-to-low pattern holds true for about a
zillion other flowering plants like hollyhocks: are we hypothesizing that
they too are hummingbird-pollinated? (Heck, for all I know, hollyhocks ARE
pollinated thusly!)

And FWIW, the rather abundant salmonberry bushes in my local park (Licton
Springs) are regularly visited by various hymenopterans (mostly bees, but
some wasps) even in temperatures not much above freezing, so long as there
are blossoms to visit. YMMV.

-Josh Hayes, josh at blarg dot net