There is insufficient evidence to claim that pollinations of a plant coincide with the full moon.

What is it about?

Two botanists have suggested that the timing of pollination in a Mediterranean plant coincides with the full moon in July. They suggest that the plant can detect the full moon through light or gravity and that this trait is an evolutionary adaptation that aids the navigation by pollinating insects. In this article, I show that there are insufficient data to make such a claim, and I predict that the pollinations do not in general coincide with the full moon.

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Why is it important?

The claim of a correlation between peak pollination times and the full moon, if verified, would have far-reaching implications for the ability of plants to sense light or gravity, and for biological evolution in general. Because the claim is based on only three data points, it is important to examine other possibilities. This article shows that the observed correlation is most likely a coincidence.