Just looking at the abstracts of the technical literature, it seems that the role of mentor pollen is complicated and unlikely to be the same from genus to genus. It got me wondering, though, whether in some cases the mechanism of avoiding self-pollination might be simpler. Darwin showed that in one orchid, after the pollinia had stuck on a bug, there needed to be a time lapse while the stipe dried and thereby lowered the pollen into position to be stuck on another flower, presumably allowing the bug time to actually get to another plant and not just another bloom on the same stem. Could it be that some plants require the pollen grains to age, dry, or whatever before they will be acceptable to a pistil? Gentle MW treatment could possibly be doing that, and it makes me wonder if similar benefits might be gained just by putting pollen in a jar of dessicant on a sunny windowsill for a day or two, or in a dehydrator (although it might be hard to keep the pollen from disappearing in a dehydrator with a lot of air flow!) Just a further thought and purely speculative on my part. I'm not a botanist or biochemist. Bob E TN hoping not to get any snow tonight _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… Unsubscribe: <mailto:pbs-unsubscribe@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net>