The reproductive biology of Hydrocharis morsus-ranae. I. Floral biology

Abstract

Hydrocharis morsus-ranae L. is a Eurasian aquatic plant introduced to North America. It spreads primarily by the rapid production and growth of stolons and overwintering turions but still flowers extensively. The white, trimerous flowers of H. morsus-ranae are emergent and unisexual, with male flowers clustered in a cyme of up to five buds and females always solitary. Both sexes of flowers, once open, last a single day, with individual male flowers opening sequentially from a given inflorescence but not necessarily on successive days. First openings in the corollas of flowers were visible by 0730 and maximum expansion was usually reached by late morning. Anthers dehisce and stigmas become receptive by 0930 with both reaching maxima by midday. The flowers produce a sweet nectar and scent which attract, and are easily accessible to, a wide variety of insects visiting the open bowl-shaped flowers. The most abundant insect visitors to the flowers were Homoptcra (Aphididae) and Hydrellia and Notiphila spp. (Diptera: Ephydridae). Both groups were found to carry small pollen loads and because of their erratic anthophilous behaviour were not considered important in pollination. Although fewer in number, the more specialized hover flies, Toxomerus marginatus (Say) (Diptera: Syrphidae), and solitary bees, Dialictus sp. (Hymcnoptera: Halictidae), were considered more likely to be the primary pollinators. After pollination and the day after anthesis, female flowers are drawn underwater by pedical recurvation and 4–6 weeks later mature into globose berrylike fruits. Fruit-sets were 38.3% in naturally pollinated flowers, 96.5% in bagging experiments with hand-pollinations, and absent in bagging experiments for agamospermy with unopened flowers. These results substantiated that poor fruit-set in some populations was caused by a lack of effective pollinators. Seed densities of 250/m2 were still estimated with the above data.