Posted by Gus on 8/3/2007, 5:45 am, in reply to "Largest eucalyptus flowers in Houston #2" Every gum nut (capsule) was once a flower, it is a swollen and now woody part of that flower that becomes a fruit. The bigger the gum nut, the bigger the flower, but capsules are normally bigger than the flower was. Eucs can have 2 or more sets of flowers in the same tree, in different stages of development. You can have flower buds of this year (before, during or shortly after flowering), greenish bigger capsules (that were flowers the previous year) a bit more down in the same branch, and brownish woody capsules (with or without seed now, they were flowers two years ago) even more down. Depends on many things (number of years flowering in a row, which depends on maturity, and hence of age), but it is possible. As you can imagine, this means in the same tree you can have the same organ with different sizes and shapes. That is why it is better trying to have samples of a certain number of them. If you just collect "1 flower bud 4 mm diameter and 7 mm long" you are missing all the other parts of the evolution of flowers and fruits, with its numbers, shapes and sizes. Still, sometimes, just 1 flower bud can ID the tree. Having said this, now if I see someone felling rare or unique trees or whole branches to get samples, I am going to be very mad. A good time to visit trees that have very high crowns (where a telescopic pole is no help) is after strong winds. Then, besides old material (those old woody capsules with little to no seed within the tree discards itself) you can find small treasures of varied sizes and shapes
81.37.118.198
Hypanthium is a part of the flower bud, it contains majority of the female part of the flower (gynoecium), normally it is "below the cap" (which covers androecium, so stamens, male part of the flower). After pollination just the hypanthium remains, becoming the capsule. 
Message Thread:
« Back to thread