The Pollination and Androphore Structure of Some Amazonian Lecythidaceae

Pollination observations were made for six Amazonian species of Lecythidaceae from five genera. Large bees were found to be the pollinators in five species and wasps in one species, Couroupita subsessilis Pilg. The species studied were allogamous, and flowers lasted only a single day. The diversity of androphore structure is discussed. The complex androphore structure is concluded to have evolved to protect the fertile stamens and to increase efficiency of pollination rather than as an adaptation to new pollinators. THE NEOTROPICAL LECYTHIDACEAE have an interesting series of androecium structures. These vary from the actinomorphic circles of stamens united only by a basal annular ring in Gustavia, or almost free in Grias, to the complex, highly zygomorphic androphore of Eschweilera, Couroupita, and other genera (fig. 1). With this large amount of variation in the staminal apparatus of the family, the type of pollination should be interesting for the inrterpretation of trends in the evolution of the flower. There is little published on pollination in the family, probably because of the difficulty of observation in large forest trees. In recent field work I have observed the pollination of species in several genera of the family. These pollination data are presented here with a summary of the androecium structure of the family.