where to pollinate habenaria rhodocheila?

[cnycharles]

I thought I had posted this last night, but don't see the thread.. oh well. that's why nobody replied!

can anybody help me with pollinating a habenaria rhodocheila? I did look under the hood, and I see where the two pollen masses are, and the two viscidium below, but I don't really see where the stigmatic surface is. Is it between where the strands are holding the pollinia to the viscidii? (sp?) I also looked down near the top of the spur but saw no sticky area where there might be a stigmatic surface. There also seems to be a barrier to the area between the two pollinia, so I don't know how the pollen would go there unless a pollinator first knocks this off and take the pollinia, and then another pollinator returns to this flower and then pollinates it.

thanks muchly

 

[Rick]

I cant think of this flower right off the top, but I've found for all sorts of oddballs to follow the shortest, straightest path to the end of the ovary.

A lot of species have tiny slits or holes instead of sticky pads. Sometimes the slits don't open up until a day or so past having pollen removed.

In many cases the stigma may be just behind the anther, but I've found in bulbos its not uncommon to find a tiny hole or slit at the opposite end of the column from the anther cap, just in front of the attachment point to the ovary.


The stanophea tribe all have thin slits just behind the anther cap, but the slits don't open much until after the anther cap has been removed. The Cory I just pollinated was like this. I pulled the pollen out the day before I pollinated. the slit was barely visible the next day, and really had to muscle the pollen into it. If I hadn't checked out the info on Troy's site, I wouldn't have known the slit was there. This is the same for Gongora's too.

I was also expecting a big sticky cup or pad for the Cochleanthes just like for a Catt or Phal, but all I found just behind the section from the anther cap was a tiny notch. So I stuffed the pollen down that and it worked!

I have heard of successful pollination, by surgically inserting pollen directly into the ovary when a stigmatic surface could not be found.

Good luck

 

[cnycharles]

! - thank you, I had never heard of this. I'll take another flower apart tomorrow and check it out ; makes sense. this species has some sort of what looks like a removable barrier, so it may need to have the pollinia removed like you say, or that cap in front of the anthers to get removed, so the next pollinator can place the pollen. I'm just used to the 'standards' that have an obvious spot for pollen to go

 

[Rick]

Ya some of these need dissection and magnification to figure it out.

The slit on a Gongora or Cory is just behind that barrier that separates the pollinia compartment from the stigmatic area.

The hardest one for me to find was for Bulbo blumei. The anther was all the way at the tip of the column, but the stigma was right on top of the ovary, down a tiny hole at the base of the column.

The column structure itself for bulbo's is pretty wild with groves and sometimes hair like extensions to keep the insect head aligned along the shaft of the column as the lip rocks.