A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1469 entries
myrmecochory
Myrmecochory is seed dispersal by ants. The plant attaches a small fleshy appendage to each seed, rich in fat and attractive to ants, which carry the seed back to the nest, eat the appendage, and discard the seed intact in the refuse chamber, where it is buried, safe from fire and rodents, and sitting in nutrient-rich waste. Around 11,000 plant species do this.
Etymology
The word is built from the Greek for ant and the Greek for spreading or carrying, on the same pattern as the other dispersal terms: zoochory by animals, anemochory by wind, hydrochory by water. The fatty appendage is an elaiosome, Greek for oil body, which is exactly what it is.
Notes
The chemistry is a piece of manipulation. The elaiosome contains a compound that closely resembles one released by dead insects, which is the signal ants use to identify something worth carrying home, so the seed is being collected as if it were prey. Trillium, bloodroot, violets, hepatica, and a large proportion of spring woodland wildflowers move this way.