Floral Biology of Fluted Pumpkin (&lt;i&gt;Telfairia occidentalis&lt;/i&gt; Hook. F.)

David Kolawole OJO,Lateef Akinkunle HAMMED,Ayodele Moruf ADEBISI,Alexander Chukwunweike ODIYI,Lawrence Stephen FAYEUN

doi:10.15835/nsb849895

Floral Biology of Fluted Pumpkin (<i>Telfairia occidentalis</i> Hook. F.)

David Kolawole OJO, Lateef Akinkunle HAMMED + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.15835/nsb849895

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Abstract

Knowledge of floral biology is essential to crop improvement. Ten genotypes of fluted pumpkin (Telfairia occidentalis) were observed for floral morphology, phenology and insect visitation for two consecutive years. Functional dioecy of fluted pumpkin was confirmed, whereas none of the studied genotypes was monoecious. Floral structures differed significantly among the genotypes. Both male and female flowers were symmetrical, pentasepalous, fimbriate and non-bright pentapetalous, but male flowers were more numerous. Male inflorescences emerged from 11 to 14 weeks after planting and the female flower buds appeared about 4 weeks later. The flowering period of the male flowers was longer than that of female flowers and both gender flowering periods coincided for a specific interval. It took between 11 to 14 days from bud initiation to anthesis and flowering ceased when there were occurrences of successful fruits set. In both gender flowers petals started unfurling at around 6.00 pm and full bloom was achieved by dawn, while petal shrivelled at sun set (between 6.30 pm to 7.30 pm). The anthers dehisced at anthesis of the male flowers; the pollen grains were whitish and sticky. Only the male flowers have nectar and pollen and this may explain infrequent female flowers visitation. Hover flies (Cheilosia species) were the major floral visitors observed.

Highlights

The understanding of flower morphology and flowering characteristics is important in angiosperms’ reproduction and breeding
Self-pollinated flowers may be cleistogamous, or chasmogamous. Both co-exist in plants, for instance in Cotnmelina benghalensis (Kaul et al, 2002; Kaul and Koul, 2009)
Materials and Methods Ten fluted pumpkin genotypes sourced from four states in southern Nigeria were used for the experiment

Summary

Introduction

The understanding of flower morphology and flowering characteristics is important in angiosperms’ reproduction and breeding. Sexual reproduction of plants is determined by two important factors, the intrinsic characteristics of plant breeding systems and the extrinsic interactions between plants and their pollen vectors (Dafni et al, 2005) These factors differentiated sexual plants as self-pollinated or cross-pollinated. Bees play an essential role in the pollination of most Cucurbitaceae (Robinson et al, 1989; Nepi and Pacini, 1993; Agbagwa et al, 2007), while other insects like thrips and hover flies have been reported to successfully pollinate cucurbits (Larson et al, 2001; Agbagwa et al, 2007; Sajjad and Saeed, 2010) This is because flowers of cucurbits are not Received: 06 Sep 2016.

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Conclusion