Re: SPEC: I. cretensis
- Subject: Re: SPEC: I. cretensis
- From: J* C*
- Date: Tue, 02 Feb 1999 20:14:36 PST
From: "Jan Clark" <janclarx@hotmail.com>
> I thought that moisture was death to pollen? That is why my friend
uses saliva to clean up in between flowers?
>Dana Brown
The moisture causes the pollen to germinate (if that is the correct
term) and if this happens while the pollen is on the stigmatic lip, it
will grow down the 'whatchamacallit', and fertilise the ovum.
I had good success moistening the dry stigmatic lips with saliva, before
pollenating, during a heat spell last November. Previous heat spells, I
was getting no pods at all, and the saliva moistened ones almost all
took.
Your friend may be removing all the pollen from the toothpick, but if he
leaves any on, and moves straight to another flower, the pollen from the
previous cross could still possibly fertilise the next flower.
Cheers, Jan Clark, in Australia
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