[Pollinator] A pollination biologist's work is never done

[Peter Bernhardt]

I thought some of you would like to see some of our work at our site along
Bloodwood Road, NSW.  It contains our major population of the fringed midge
orchid, Corunastylis frimbriata.  As you can see, Ren has set up his little
motors to suck the fragrance out of a flowering stem.  Dr Raguso may have
more to say about this as Ren learned how to do it from him.  While the
motor draws out the fragrance over 3 hours the entire flowering stem must
remain inside this corner of an over turkey roasting bag (our blessings on
Reynolds).

There are over 100 flowering stems at this site.  To determine whether
these flowers are capable of self-pollination we isolate them from
insects.  Thanks to suggestions from the wild seed collectors at the Shaw
Nature Reserve we've enclosed them in an Organza bag while they are in
bud.  You can see the bag is held in place with a bamboo skewer.  Yes,
these are the same bags used for candy and things at Italian weddings but
they come in quite a variety of sizes.

Peter.
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