Favoritos de arduinna

Over 10 years ago, I planted a Japanese Woodland Peony at the edge of my woods. It blooms every couple of years, but usually doesn't set fruit. The blooms are simple and elegant and white. It's the fruit and seeds that are wildly colored. This fruit is old, but the inside would have been brilliant red right after it opened. Bright contrasting colors associated with fruit, like red and blue, are often an adaptation to attract birds for dispersal. The method used by this peony is particularly interesting because the red "bait" structures are unfertilized ovules. Viable seeds are blue.
Most plants trying to lure birds into dispersing their naked seeds use arils (often an expanded placenta) or simply colorful patterns on the seeds to encourage the birds. Peony fruit, with their mix of colorful ovules and seeds, are odd.
There actually aren't many studies on seed dispersal in peonies, and while the color and structure of the fruits and seeds suggest bird dispersal, so far, there is little evidence that birds play a major role in peony seed dispersal.