Whose the daddy?

[Pachrian]

I was just downloading macro shots I took of my hibiscus plants recently and noticed pollen on the pads of several of the flowers. Which made me think: when hybridizers do the pollinating how do you avoid that additional pollen gets transfered to those flowers by natural means, bees for example?

How do you know for sure who the father is?

[Nievesgirl]

I was just downloading macro shots I took of my hibiscus plants recently and noticed pollen on the pads of several of the flowers. Which made me think: when hybridizers do the pollinating how do you avoid that additional pollen gets transfered to those flowers by natural means, bees for example?

How do you know for sure who the father is?

Uli usually people who hybridize do it indoors on in a green house away from nature lol.  Most of the time when hybridizers get pods from flowers they did not pollinate I am sure they just label mother X unknown.

If they had a DNA test like the do for dogs and Cats you can determine who was the father. You can mate a dog with two sires and have a litter of pups. You have to Dna pups to see who was the sire of each one same with cats.

But until then ( chris is working on it hahaah)  no one will know who is the father. We can make guesses of to who was the father.
I have done this many times with some of Charlies unknown Cv's or father unknowns. Example Wild dream. Charlie said it was from rosalind but does not know the father. I suggested maybe Dragon's breath is the father due to the characteristics it shows.

[Charlie]

Strangest thing - in all the years I have made crosses with hibiscus I have never has a single pod with fertile seeds inside that was not hand pollinated by myself and marked with a tag. Not one. My greenhouses where I have done it are opened up during the day and bees, wasps, and hummingbirds all feed on the hibiscus nectar with great gusto. Whatever the natural pollinator was for hibiscus in its native environment does not seem to live in southern California. Chris pointed out to me once that pollinators can be very specific for each species of flower, and he suggested some odd critter that I was not familiar with as a potential pollinator of the original hibiscus. I have to look that up, can't quite recall if it was on the forum or in private mail. Anyway, I am going to guess that the pollen you saw was accidentally spread by you as you worked with the flower photos. Its always possible for wind to move flowers against each other, too, but as I said I have yet to find a naturally produced seedpod in many years of hybridizing. Go figure!

Charlie

[Pachrian]

Charlie, what you said about flower specific pollinators is so interesting. I always thought pollen just sticks to whatever insect or object happens to come in contact with it and then gets transfered "by accident". Since you see bees on your flowers ( I have to admit I haven't paid attention, don't know if I ever saw one) I would have thought you'd get pollen transfer. Now if bees weren't attracted to hibiscus that would be different.

After reading your reply I checked out my new Fallen Hero blooms that opened just this morning. They all (3) had pollen on them. Since we just had this latest arctic cold snap the plant was indoors, so no wind, no contact with anything. The only thing that I can think of is that the pollen pads are kind of recessed, with other kinds they stick out beyond the pollen sacks. So when the sacks open, some of the pollen gets brushed onto the pads. Easier to see with red pads too.

(btw, it should be "who's" in the subject line, oops!)

[Charlie]

Pollinators are fascinating, aren't they?

Consider the problem for hibiscus. The nectar that bees and hummingbirds come for is located at the base of the flower while the pollen and stigma pads are held well away from the base by the long stigma column. When you watch a bee or hummingbird approach you see that there is plenty of space for them to get to the nectar without touching the staminal column with its sacs of sticky pollen. They are even less likely to contact the pads at the top of the column which is where the pollen needs to be deposited. The question becomes, what sort of critter would be likely to make contact with the pollen on the side of the stigma column and then touch that pollen to the pads on top of the column of another flower?

Forum contributor and biologist Chris Luk had this interesting thing to say about hibiscus pollinators in a private email awhile back:

"I do think that nectar feeding birds were the primary pollinators of hibiscus.  It seems that all over the world there are species that fill the same niche, in the Americas the nectar feeding birds is primarily filled by hummingbird species.  In Africa and Asia the primary nectar feeding birds are the sunbirds.  They have thin long beaks much like humming birds, and it is likely they fed on wild hibiscus species.  In Hawaii, there are honeycreepers which also feed on nectar and have modified bills to do so and it is my understanding that Hawaiian hibiscus are one of their food sources.  Gotta love convergent evolution   Sunbirds are considered to be rare and their loss of habitat and decreased number I think would in fact have a role in hibiscus species going extinct."

Charlie