Experimental Question Analysis

1) When we put the pollen under the SEM microscope, we found that there are many differences  between simple and compound flowers. One difference between the two is the surface of the pollen grains. The Fuchsia  (simple flower)  had a psilate (smooth) surface with fungal hyfee  entangling its triangular body. Then the Asian lily (simple flower) had a reticulate surface, that at 2000x almost looked like the outside surface of a cantaloupe  with the grooves being almost circular. Where as the Dahlia (complex flower) had an echinate (spiky) surface with little holes that look like the holes you would find with acne. Another difference between simple and complex flowers is that the simple flowers had apertures whereas the complex flowers did not. The Asian lily had a long slit like aperture called a monocopulate and the fuchsia had three circular apertures at the end of each corner on its triangular body called a tricolporate.

2) After doing the experiment, we can conclude that our hypothesis was supported by our results. We say this because the simple flowers (Asian lily and Fuchsia) had psilatel and reticulate surfaces that are relatively flat compared to the Dahlia's pollen grain surface. Since it's flat, it's easier for the pollen to spread onto other things. Those two possessing pollen that is easier to spread makes sense because if you even touch the anther of these two flowers the pollen easily comes off. The Dahlia's pollen grain being an echinate surface causes it to make it a little harder to spread the pollen as the pokes the other pollen grains. The pollen grain poking other pollen grains explains why there are holes on the surface. With that, the two flowers have more things in common than the compound flower (Dahlia) does. Another thing that the Fuchsia and Asian lily have in common are that they both have apertures, whereas the compound flower (Dahlia) does not.

3) During this experiment we have done several errors. One was that we didn't know the actual species of Dahlia and Fuchsia. Since we didn't know the actual species, the phylogenic tree and pollen table were all educated guesses. Another error was that the we didn't have some of the pollen samples on hand when doing the compound microscope portion of the experiment. This caused us to a behind a day.