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Published online: 11 April 2007 | Updated online: 1 November 2007 | doi:10.1038/nchina.2007.43
Pollination: Do it yourself
Tim Reid
Abstract
A forest orchid can actively move parts of its flower to pollinate itself during drought conditions
Original article citation
et al. Pollination: Self-fertilization strategy in an orchid. Nature 441, 945 (2006).Introduction
Orchids are believed to be the most advanced example of floral evolution. Laiqiang Huang and co-workers1 at Tsinghua University in Shenzhen have observed for the first time an intriguing self-pollination strategy used by the hermaphrodite tree-living orchid, Holcoglossum amesianum. The technique is particularly useful during the drought season, when there is a lack of wind or insects to transport pollen.
Almost two thousand H. Amesianum flowers were studied over three flowering seasons in forests in the Yunnan province of China. Each flower has a beak-like projection, known as the rostellum, which separates the anther, the male organ of the flower, from the female stigma cavity. During self-pollination, the anther extends itself downward beyond the rostellum and then thrusts itself upwards to insert pollen into the stigma cavity. All of the flowers were found to use this strategy, and over half succeeded at self-pollination with almost all of these going on to bear fruit.
Self-pollination is often unfavourable from an evolutionary point of view. However, when the researchers manually induced cross-pollination between individual H. Amesium flowers, they found no significant difference in the number of seeds produced. The inbreeding may therefore be an effective adaptation to harsh conditions when cross-pollination is not viable.
A video of the orchid can be seen at www.natureasia.com/shenzhen.
* Updated: A video link showing the orchid self-pollinating has been added in the final paragraph.The authors of this work are from:
Center for Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, China; School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China; National Orchid Conservation Center, Shenzhen, China; College of Forestry, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, China.
Reference
- Liu, K. W. et al. Pollination: Self-fertilization strategy in an orchid. Nature 441, 945 (2006). | Article |
