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Pollination Biology

Orchids Pollen Dispersal Units and Reproductive Consequences

  • Chapter
Orchid Biology: Reviews and Perspectives, X

Male and female reproductive organs vary widely in angiosperms, due to the number of ovules per ovary and the number of pollen grains in pollen dispersal units (PDUs), a term used to indicate the different ways in which ripe pollen is presented for dispersal (Pacini, 1997). Pollen may travel as a single grain, or en masse, as a compound pollen (Knox and McConchie, 1986).

Pollen forms aggregates by various means: (i) viscous fluids derived from tapetum activity and/or degeneration; (ii) filaments derived from tapetum activity, composed of sporopollenin and continuous with pollen exine; (iii) threads derived from other anther parts; (iv) common walls, i.e., contiguous pollen grains derived from the same meiocyte or from close meiocytes which share a wall (Pacini and Franchi, 1999; Hesse, Vogel, and Halbritter 2000).

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  1. Ettore Pacini
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Botany Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Estonian University of Life Sciences, Tartu, Estonia

    Tiiu Kull

  2. Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, University of California, Irivne, CA, USA

    Joseph Arditti

  3. Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore

    Sek Man Wong

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Pacini, E. (2009). Pollination Biology. In: Kull, T., Arditti, J., Wong, S.M. (eds) Orchid Biology: Reviews and Perspectives, X. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8802-5_5

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