Suzanne Brown, age 11, of Westmoreland, New York for her question:

What gives flowers their smells?

The flowers set up shop to tempt their favorite insects. For this they create tasty sweet nectar, pretty colors and fragrant perfumes. Visiting insects zoom in from afar, attracted by colors and scents. They scramble over petals to get to the sweet nectar—and grains of pollen brush on and off their small bodies. As they visit from flower to flower the golden grains are distributed to pollinate the seeds. This is why flowers create scents.

These special odors are oily substances, packed into tiny pockets among the cells of the flowery petals. They are light, volatile oils that evaporate in the warm summer air. As they evaporate, they spread their smells far and wide. And each flower wears just the right perfume to attract the insect that will be most useful to it.