Abstract
IT is well known that the perianth in wind-pollinated plants is lacking or greatly reduced and inconspicuous, that nectar-secreting glands are absent and that immense quantities of pollen are produced compared with entomophilous flowers. Furthermore, the individual pollen grains are more suited to carriage by wind, with their thinner walls and simpler form lacking spines or surface sculpture. They have a markedly lower specific gravity and do not cohere en masse like those of insect-fertilized flowers. It is therefore rather surprising to find that solitary bees of the genus Andrena sometimes collect large quantities of anemophilous pollen, for example, Quercus, Fagus, Castanea, as the analyses per cent of individual pollen loads taken off the species named below demonstrate: In addition, pollen loads containing high proportions of Quercus pollen have been taken off A. jacobi Perk., and of Castanea pollen off A. dorsata (Kirby) and A. thoracica (Fab.).
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Weiss, H. B., J. Econ. Ent., 36, 1 (1943), a review.
Hyde, H. A., and Williams, D. A., New Phyt., 43, 49 (1944).
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CHAMBERS, V. British Bees and Wind-borne Pollen. Nature 155, 145 (1945). https://doi.org/10.1038/155145a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/155145a0
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