Pollination gets most of the attention when people discuss how melastomes reproduce — the buzz-pollination mechanism covered elsewhere on this site is genuinely one of the family's more interesting traits. But getting pollinated is only half the reproductive story. What happens to the seeds afterward varies considerably across this family's roughly 150 genera, and it's just as important to how these plants have spread as widely as they have.
Berries built for animals
Many genera — Miconia and Melastoma among the most prominent examples — produce fleshy berries designed to be eaten. Birds and, in some regions, bats consume the fruit and disperse the seeds elsewhere, often over considerable distances, in their droppings. This is the same basic mechanism behind Miconia calvescens' notorious spread as an invasive species — the traits that make a plant good at natural seed dispersal are the same traits that make it dangerous outside its native range.
Capsules built for wind and rain
Other genera, including Rhexia and several Sonerila species, produce dry capsules containing large numbers of tiny seeds, released gradually and dispersed by wind or rain splash rather than through animal digestion. This strategy tends to favor shorter-distance dispersal but in much higher seed volume per plant.
A single family containing both animal-dispersed berries and wind-scattered capsules is a reminder that "melastome" describes a shared ancestry, not a shared lifestyle.
Why this matters for growers
Understanding a species' natural dispersal strategy is genuinely useful for anyone growing melastomes outdoors — berry-producing genera can self-seed more widely than expected if birds are active in the area, while capsule-bearing species tend to stay closer to the parent plant.
For the mechanism that gets seeds started in the first place, see our piece on buzz pollination in melastomes.