Can water pollinate plants?
Yes. There’s a reason seagrasses produce some of the longest known pollen grains on the planet – they use water to help with pollination. This is called hydrophily. The 5mm-long pollen flows into the water from the male stamens, and forms tangled strings moved by sea currents, which eventually land by chance on a female flower.
Scientists have found rod-shaped pollen is best at striking its target and that some seagrasses increase their luck by only flowering at low spring tides, when male flower buds (complete with pollen) float on the surface and are captured inside creased female petals. Some seagrass pollen forms rafts shaped like snowflakes, while other threads drift underwater.
As water pollination relies on volatile marine currents and chance, waterpollinated seagrass also hedges its bets, using some self-pollination and pollination by crustaceans and sea worms as a backup plan.