Fertilization & pedicel elongation in xAmaryllis

Nhu Nguyen xerantheum@gmail.com
Mon, 20 Sep 2010 07:25:51 PDT
On Sun, Sep 19, 2010 at 12:44 PM, Michael Mace <mikemace@att.net> wrote:

> it's always interesting to drop in on your photo stream and
> see what unusual thing you have blooming at the moment.
>

Hear hear! I definitely agree with you on that. Ken's photostream has some
really fun photos of amaryllis seeds/inflorescence parts that you will never
find elsewhere. Keep up the great work, Ken.


> I think I vaguely remember reading that when fertilization happens, some of
> the genetic material goes into creating the capsule and some goes into the
> seed itself...maybe one of the botanists on the list
> could comment...
>

The seedpods of plants are all maternal tissue. The pollen has two sperm
nuclei but one goes into fertilizing the egg and the other fuses with 2
maternal nuclei to become the endosperm which is part of the seed itself. Of
course in dicots the endosperm is quickly consumed by the seed to produce
the two cotyledons (ex. beans).

Nhu
Berkeley, CA
Strumaria tenella inflorescence just appeared
-- 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/xerantheum/


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