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M. solomonensis pollination?


fred

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Hi all,

 

I grow a few Hydnophytum species, they flower and set seed without problem. My M. salomonensis on the other hand flowers, but never produces seeds.

 

The flowers don't even open, sometimes there's a tiny slit and I check up on them but they don't open any further.

 

I tried both removing the petals and forcing them open to pollinate them manually, but I never been successful.

 

Any tips?

 

regards,

Fred

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Myrmecodia salomonensis Becc. (Odoardo Beccari) published in Malesia raccolta 2, p175, (1884).

(Malesia 2) http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/44197946#page/289/mode/1up.

Merr. & L. M. Perry (Elmer Drew Merrill & Lily May Perry) Journal of the Arnold Arboretum 26, p31 (1945)

(J. Arnold Arbor.) http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/8443428#page/35/mode/1up.

See also M. tuberosa Jack “salomonensis”.

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Hi all,

 

I grow a few Hydnophytum species, they flower and set seed without problem. My M. solomonensis on the other hand flowers, but never produces seeds.

 

The flowers don't even open, sometimes there's a tiny slit and I check up on them but they don't open any further.

 

I tried both removing the petals and forcing them open to pollinate them manually, but I never been successful.

 

Any tips?

 

regards,

Fred

 

Actually, I feel that pollination in many Hydnophytinae are a bit of a mystery. Often they are considered cleistogamous because the flowers seem not to open. However, when dissecting such flowers one can often find mechanisms that prevent self pollination, going as far as male or female flowers...

Of cause a male or female flower, that does not open does not make any sense at all, as it cannot self-pollinate.

I feel that these flowers or the natural pollinators are not yet understood and that in the wild there are pollinators (ants???) that open these flowers and are doing pollination work.

In cultivation, in addition my experience is that even species that do self pollinate do not always fruit but sometimes during certain periods of the season or in other cases when they are fertilized well.

So there still is a lot to be found out and lots of room for speculation...

All the best

Andreas 

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Derrick, sorry for the typo. I never double-checked the spelling in the 2 years I'm growing it.

 

Andreas,

 

yesterday I moved some plants to a small lightbox for overwintering, including my M. salomonensis. Much to my amazement there was - what looks like - a fruit developing. It's pale with darker stripes, I'll take a picture later today. However, it's on a location that I didn't manually pollinate so it'll remain a mystery.

 

One small remark regarding ant pollination. Aren't ants very territorial/defensive, meaning that ants from one colony (plant) would have little chance to visit a second colony?

 

regards,

Fred

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Maeyama T.  Matsumoto T. 2000. Genetic relationship of myrmecophyte (Anthorrhiza caerulea) individuals within and among territories of the arboreal ant (Dolichoderus sp.) detected using random amplified polymorphic DNA markers. Austral Ecology Vol. 25, 3, pp273- 282.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1442-9993.2000.01034.x/abstract

With available time and patience it is often possible to bypass these money making institutions and find FREE sites such as this one that provide the entire article.

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/tropics/10/4/10_4_509/_pdf

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Fred,

 

There is not a one to one relationship of one ant colony to one plant.  The ant colonies are large enough that one ant colony may inhabit tens or hundreds of ant-plants on any one tree or even on groups of trees.  So the ants may have many plants of any particular species to visit within their colony.  Any given ant colony probably also inhabits not only Rubiaceous ant-plants like Hydnophytum and Myrmecodia but also Lecanopteris ferns, Dischidias and other plants with ant accommodations.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 3 weeks later...

for the heterostylous species  yes , 

with a microscope or a binocular especially

 

in the corolla  see the ring  hairs position , the position of the anther and the stigma with this ring  hairs.

 

on the M.aureospina :

 

with the longistyle flower , the ring hairs are at midway up the tube , anthers among the hairs  stigma halfway up the lobes

with the brevistyle flower , the ring hair lower the tube ,anthers at apex the tube, stigma above the ring hair

 

but the M.tuberosa 'salomonensis'  seem not heterostylous

 

see this article in french  desolate

 

"Déjà, Darwin proposait, en 1877, que le positionnement réciproque des anthères et stigmates des morphes floraux des plantes hétérostyles permettrait de favoriser l’allopollinisation en plaçant le pollen d’un morphe sur une partie du corps de l’insecte pollinisateur correspondant précisément à la zone qui entrera en contact avec les stigmates d’un autre morphe. Il observa d’ailleurs que lorsqu’il introduisait différents objets comme des poils, des aiguilles ou des proboscis d’abeilles mortes dans des fleurs de Primula spp., les grains de pollen étaient déposés sur des zones différentes suivant le morphe. D’autres auteurs ont, par la suite, examiné la répartition du pollen brévistyle et longistyle sur des insectes visitant des plantes distyliques. Le pollen des deux morphes se trouvait sur des parties différentes du corps des pollinisateurs visitant Fagopyrum esculentum (Rozov & Skrebtsova, 1958, cité par Namai, 1990), Pulmonaria et Cratoxylum[4]. Chez Eichhornia paniculata (Pontederiaceae), une espèce tristylique, les fleurs tubulaires sont auto-compatibles et pourtant 77 % des fécondations sont inter-morphes [5].

L’auto-incompatibilité presque toujours associée à l’hétérostylie rend infructueuse toute pollinisation entre morphe de même type. Baker[6] reconnaît que le pollen déposé sur un stigmate incompatible est gaspillé car il ne participe pas au succès reproducteur de la plante. Il doit donc exister une pression de sélection tendant à diminuer les transferts incompatibles et augmenter les transferts compatibles.

On observe chez la plupart des espèces distyliques que les stigmates des fleurs longistyles récoltent plus de pollen que ceux des fleurs brévistyles[2]. Cela est attribué à la plus grande accessibilité, au contact avec des insectes, des styles longs que des styles courts[7]. Dans la plupart des espèces hétérostyles, les étamines courtes des fleurs longistyles produisent des grains de pollens plus nombreux et plus petits[2]. Selon Ganders[1], la production plus importante en grains de pollen des fleurs longistyles servirait à compenser le faible dépôt de pollen sur les stigmates des fleurs brévistyles. Celles-ci reçoivent, en conséquence, une plus grande proportion de pollen compatible. La taille inférieure de ces grains ne serait qu’un moyen physiologique pour en produire un nombre plus important[7]."

 

jeff

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  • 3 months later...

Recently had a new berry. During cleaning the sticky threads that the seeds use to hold on to the branch were very clear.

 
Flowering like mad, only one berry:
 

M. salomonensis berry & flowers on plant

 
Before squeezing them out:
 

M. salomonensis berry

 
Here are the sticky threads (name?):
 

M. salomonensis seeds

 

regards,

Fred

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