Pollinium
Encyclopedia
This article is about pollinium. You may be looking for the element polonium
Polonium
Polonium is a chemical element with the symbol Po and atomic number 84, discovered in 1898 by Marie Skłodowska-Curie and Pierre Curie. A rare and highly radioactive element, polonium is chemically similar to bismuth and tellurium, and it occurs in uranium ores. Polonium has been studied for...

in the periodic table.


Pollinium, or plural pollinia, is a coherent mass of pollen
Pollen
Pollen is a fine to coarse powder containing the microgametophytes of seed plants, which produce the male gametes . Pollen grains have a hard coat that protects the sperm cells during the process of their movement from the stamens to the pistil of flowering plants or from the male cone to the...

 grains in a plant.

They are the product of only one anther, but are transferred, during pollination, as a single unit. This is regularly seen in plants such as orchids and many species of milkweeds (Asclepiadoideae).

Most orchids have waxy pollinia. These are connected to one or two elongate stipes, which in turn are attached to the sticky viscidium.

Some orchid genera have mealy pollinia. These are tapering into a caudicle (stalk), attached to the viscidium. They extend into the middle section of the column
Column (botany)
The column, or technically the gynostemium, is a reproductive structure that can be found in several plant families: Aristolochiaceae, Orchidaceae, and Stylidiaceae....

.

The combination of pollinia, caudicles, stipe
Stipe (botany)
In botany, a stipe is a stalk that supports some other structure. The precise meaning is different depending on which taxonomic group is being described....

s and viscidium form the pollinarium.

Pollinia is also the name of the quarterly publication of the Irish Orchid Society. http://www.pollinia.org
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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