Re: Wet Pollen

**M* G* <g*@cict.fr>**

Dear Theodore,

In fact what's happened is that the pollen content is very concentrated in

minerals, sugars,.... and if it's soaked in water by osmotic force

(difference of element concentration between the pollen grain and the

surrounding water) the water goes within the pollen, "in order" to

equilibrate the elements concentrations (outside and inside).

But in fact the volume of water needed to equilibrate the two element

concentrations is greater than the volume of the pollen grain which will

explode under high water pressure.

When doing aroid pollen counts or testing viability, in general we use

water with 10%sugar, in order to decrease the difference of element

concentrations.

By teh way Montrichardia has been described to have an atypical exploding

pollen germination (see attached file) but in this species, it's "normal".

All the best,

Marc

Montrichardia exploding pollen - Weber & Halbritter 2007.pdf
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