Amianthium muscaetoxicum, commonly known as fly poison, is a perennial plant found in throughout the Eastern United States. Other common names include crow poison and stagger grass; the name fly poison arose from the translation of the Latin name A. muscaetoxicum, muscae meaning flies and toxicum meaning poison. In the past, the Cherokee would use the plant’s poison to kill crows, hence its common name crow poison, while early settlers would mix the crushed up bulb with honey to kill flies (Fly Poison). Upon blooming, the flowers form a raceme inflorescence with white flowers, while the top of the inflorescence has mainly unopened buds. The flowers are made up of three petals and three sepals. Its basal leaves arise near the bottom of the plant
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To determine how age affected the female flowers, 6 different plants across 5 plots were hand pollinated at a random age given to the plant. The plants were counted daily in order to determine the age of the plants and were pollinated till the pollen was easily seen to the naked eye. For the effect on male flowers, around 6 plants in 5 plots were counted as well, from an age bracket of 1-day to 6-days. Upon dehiscence, the age of the anthers were recorded. Then the anthers were aged on three flowers that were bagged, incubated for 24 hours on agar plates, then the frequency of germinated pollen tubes were counted. To test pistil and pollen viability given different ages, flowers of five age classes were hand pollinated with pollen of six different age classes. One concern was improper measurement of stigma receptivity- measurement of only when stigmas were no longer receptive was measured, not when the stigmas became receptive, could be a problem if pollen could last long enough to pollinate, ignoring if the stigma was able to receive pollen early on or later on. One experiment was designed as a split-plot to address this, with pistil age as the whole plot while the anthers were the split plot (Palmer, Travis, and Antonovics, 232).With the difference in stigma age, there was no effect on fruit …show more content…
A field manipulation was conducted to determine the effects of pollen from varying distant plants on seeds on 20 plants from 5 different populations of Amianthium. Four pollen treatments were introduced: pollen from less than 2m, pollen from 5m, pollen from 15m away, pollen from 60m. A control group was introduced to check if there was any random pollination or self-pollinated seed production. Individual flowers were the units used, and treatment began at the lowermost flower until all five treatments had been applied. Pollen application occurred every other day for a month, with pollen from plants of different cardinal directions. Then mature flowers were collected and marked for their fruit set and seed set. The seeds were air dried and weighed. Some factors considered in seed weight: population, individual plant, position of inflorescence, and treatment. Population 3 had low levels of seed production, thus 8 plants were discarded randomly from population 1 and 2 each, to have 12 plants across the populations. While population 1 had negligible results, population 2 and 3 showed that plants that are pollinated by nearby plants are more likely to produce less fruits than pollen from a plant further away. The size of the inflorescence had no bearing on levels of fruit set, and there were no major differences between the populations. Average numbers of seeds were affected by pollen distance; pollen from further plants produced
To determine how age affected the female flowers, 6 different plants across 5 plots were hand pollinated at a random age given to the plant. The plants were counted daily in order to determine the age of the plants and were pollinated till the pollen was easily seen to the naked eye. For the effect on male flowers, around 6 plants in 5 plots were counted as well, from an age bracket of 1-day to 6-days. Upon dehiscence, the age of the anthers were recorded. Then the anthers were aged on three flowers that were bagged, incubated for 24 hours on agar plates, then the frequency of germinated pollen tubes were counted. To test pistil and pollen viability given different ages, flowers of five age classes were hand pollinated with pollen of six different age classes. One concern was improper measurement of stigma receptivity- measurement of only when stigmas were no longer receptive was measured, not when the stigmas became receptive, could be a problem if pollen could last long enough to pollinate, ignoring if the stigma was able to receive pollen early on or later on. One experiment was designed as a split-plot to address this, with pistil age as the whole plot while the anthers were the split plot (Palmer, Travis, and Antonovics, 232).With the difference in stigma age, there was no effect on fruit …show more content…
A field manipulation was conducted to determine the effects of pollen from varying distant plants on seeds on 20 plants from 5 different populations of Amianthium. Four pollen treatments were introduced: pollen from less than 2m, pollen from 5m, pollen from 15m away, pollen from 60m. A control group was introduced to check if there was any random pollination or self-pollinated seed production. Individual flowers were the units used, and treatment began at the lowermost flower until all five treatments had been applied. Pollen application occurred every other day for a month, with pollen from plants of different cardinal directions. Then mature flowers were collected and marked for their fruit set and seed set. The seeds were air dried and weighed. Some factors considered in seed weight: population, individual plant, position of inflorescence, and treatment. Population 3 had low levels of seed production, thus 8 plants were discarded randomly from population 1 and 2 each, to have 12 plants across the populations. While population 1 had negligible results, population 2 and 3 showed that plants that are pollinated by nearby plants are more likely to produce less fruits than pollen from a plant further away. The size of the inflorescence had no bearing on levels of fruit set, and there were no major differences between the populations. Average numbers of seeds were affected by pollen distance; pollen from further plants produced