Re: HYB: Seed Developement

In a message dated 7/8/01 1:54:57 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
wmoores@watervalley.net writes:


> In this part of the world, I have not seen a bee in many years.  I do 
> see a few bumblebees and have seen them go into a flower by following 
> the beard and going under the stigmatic lip.  I have not seen the 
> bumblebee back out and go to the next fall on the same blossom.  He 
> flies away to the next open flower and leaves the other two falls, 
> beards, stigmatic lips alone, yet he may pollinate that flower.  If 
> the bee can do it with one stigmatic lip, why cannot man? (I have for 
> more years than I care to tell).  I have watched bumblebees and 
> hummers and they seem to know which flowers they have already worked 
> and leave them alone.  I see this daily outside my kitchen window 
> where the cypress vine grows up on the fence and is a mass of bloom.
> 

Sid Dubois of Melrose Gardens told me that each grain of pollen contains 
enough to fertilize many seeds but that only one can get through . 

Now ,if my basic biology is correct ,a cell may only be fertilized once. That 
cell would then become a seed in the pod.Each seed in the pod must represent 
a seperate act of fertilization or there would be no variation in the 
seedlings.

Walter, I am sure your experience guides you as to the best time to 
pollinate. Pollinating one lip with good pollen under the right conditions 
would be more than enough for a full pod.Pollinating all three lips is an 
attempt to overcome adverse conditions with greater numbers. It can also just 
be redundancy because after all your there,the pollens there,if you don't 
have any further use for it apply it.

Michael
Stockton Ca. where pods just shrivel up after 100+ degree days

I don't know how long a time the bloom allows fertilization to take place but 
it is probably relatively short. The plant must also limit the number of 
seeds that are allowed to develop. I just opened a pod to check. There were 
fifty plus full size seeds and over a hundred undeveloped seeds.


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