Tree pollen exploits surrogate mothers
By Susan Milius
A rare kind of desert tree can manage a bit of sexual wizardry that scientists have never seen before in a plant, reports an international research team.
An Algerian cypress releases pollen that can develop without fertilization, using another tree species’ female organs instead of a mate’s, says Christian Pichot of the French National Institute for Agronomy Research in Avignon, France. He and his colleagues discovered this talent of Cupressus dupreziana by examining what plant breeders had intended to be mixed-species hybrids. Instead, the offspring all turn out to be clones of dad, the researchers say in the July 5 Nature.