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It consists of pollen grains (highly reduced microgametophytes), which produce male gametes (sperm cells). Pollen grains have a hard coat made of sporopollenin that protects the gametophytes during the process of their movement from the stamens to the pistil of flowering plants, or from the male cone to the female cone of gymnosperms.
[10] (also called pollen vectors): organisms that carry or move the pollen grains from the anther of one flower to the receptive part of the carpel or pistil (stigma) of another. [11] Between 100,000 and 200,000 species of animal act as pollinators of the world's 250,000 species of flowering plant. [12]
Some flowers may self-pollinate, producing seed using pollen from a different flower of the same plant, but others have mechanisms to prevent self-pollination and rely on cross-pollination, when pollen is transferred from the anther of one flower to the stigma of another flower on a different individual of the same species.
A good predictor for when a plant will bloom and produce pollen is a calculation of the growing degree days. The color of pollen below indicates the color as it appears when the pollen arrives at the beehive. After arriving to the colony with a fresh load of pollen, the honey bee unloads its pollen from the pollen basket located on its hind legs.
Dichogamy: Pollen and stigma of the flower mature at different times to avoid self-pollination. Self-incompatibility: In same plants, the mature pollen fall on the receptive stigma of the same flower but fail to bring about self-pollination. Male sterility: The pollen grains of some plants are not functional. Such plants set seeds only after ...
The anther produces pollen grains that contain male gametophytes. The pollen grains attach to the stigma on top of a carpel, in which the female gametophytes (inside ovules) are located. Plants may either self-pollinate or cross-pollinate. The transfer of pollen (the male gametophytes) to the female stigmas occurs is called pollination.
Pollen of angiosperms must be transported to the stigma, the receptive surface of the carpel, of a compatible flower, for successful pollination to occur. After arriving, the pollen grain (an immature microgametophyte) typically completes its development. It may grow a pollen tube and undergo mitosis to produce two sperm nuclei.
Wind-pollinated flowers may be small and inconspicuous, as well as green and not showy. They produce enormous numbers of relatively small pollen grains (hence wind-pollinated plants may be allergens, but seldom are animal-pollinated plants allergenic). Their stigmas may be large and feathery to catch the pollen grains.