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Thermal investigations using infrared (IR) thermometry and false colour thermography were carried out on flowering plants in the Botanical Garden of Berlin and in a private garden. Special interest went to phototropic plants that orient their blossoms towards a light source (mainly the sun) and within this group to solar trackers (heliotropism) that follow the path of the sun during the day. Best known among the latter is the sunflower. Bowl shaped flowers comparable to satellite disks focus the solar radiation effectively on their centre, resulting in a warming of the female organs at that point. Temperature differences above ambient can be as high as 10.7 K with a mean value of 6.0 K. Pollinating insects were often observed sun-basking in the bowls or on the flower disks attracted by energetic rewards in form of nectar and heat.
False colour infrared (IR) thermography was performed on a sunny summer day in the Berlin Botanic Garden. The main interest focused on blossoms of different size, colours and shapes: disk-, bowl- and funnel-like anatomy demonstrating various modes of light absorption and heating-up during the day. Some of the flowers were phototropic or even solar tracking. Blossom temperatures ranged from 18.0 to 33.3 °C (mean 26.3 ± 2.5 °C, S.D., n = 37) at 21 °C air temperature. Several thermograms showed honey- and bumblebees also. In some cases the results are compared with those of a contact-free IR thermometry. One winter- and one late-spring-flowering plant are included in the overview.