h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

On the greek island Corfu I had a lovely dish of deep fried zucchini flowers stuffed with seasoned sauce

Zucchini flowers can also be used in salads to good effect.

Hand pollination is easy since the flowers are imperfect, though staminate and pistillate flowers are born on the same plant.

The female flower is distinguished by the immature ovary or fruit below the petals and a smooth surface on the pistal inside the flower.

The male flowers lack the ovary and have a surface on the stamen inside the flower powdery with pollen grains.

They can be hand pollinated either by collecting a little pollen on a camel hair arts paint brush and brushing it onto the pistil of a female flower, or by means of p!ucking a male flower, splitting the sides of the petals to expose the stamen, then placing it inside the female flower, stamen in contact with the pistil.

The female flower will then slowly close, wrapping up the male flower in the process.

I have plenty of male blossoms in my zucchini, but no females yet.