5Guys

=**BIOL 1002 Practical 9.**= Wiki for team 5 Guys 16 October 2012

Flowers being studied were the reproductive organs for a series of N**ew Guinea Impatiens**. The flowers for study were collected from Woolloomooloo at 8am on the 16th October. A series of approximately 20 flowers from three plants was collected.

Plant morphology
An example flower of the New Guinea Impatiens is shown in Figure 9.1 below. The petals, anther and pollen grains are visible in the image. The tip of the nectary is visible at the back of the first image and shown in full in Figure 9.2.

Figure 9.2 New Guinea Impatiens reverse picture
We assessed various features of the flowers, presented in table 1 below. In general the flowers were of consistent size and shape:

Table 9.1 Flower morphology characteristics for New Guinea Impatiens (measurements in mm)
Based on these readings, we can say that the flowers are of very consistent size across different specimens including from different plants.
 * **Feature** || Sample 1 || Sample 2 || Sample 3 || Sample 4 || Sample 5 || Sample 6 || Sample 7 || **Average (mm)** || **St****d Deviation** ||
 * Stamem || 5 || 8 || 6 || 4 || 7 || 6 || 4 || **5.71** || **1.50** ||
 * Petal (w) || 23 || 27 || 22 || 24 || 29 || 30 || 20 || **25.00** || **3.74** ||
 * Nectary || 52 || 48 || 60 || 37 || 70 || 65 || 55 || **55.28** || **11.04** ||
 * Anther || 6 ||  || 5 || 8 ||   ||   ||   || **6.33** || **1.53** ||
 * Total dia || 55 || 52 || 54 || 59 || 65 || 63 || 60 || **58.28** || **4.82** ||

Pollen morphology
The New Guinea Impatiens produces large anther on a bright green stamen which extends across the face of the flower rather than out of the centre.The pollen was an off white colour.

A 1mm cube of fuchsin gel was rubbed against the anther and a significant quantity of pollen was collected. The fuchsin gel was melted and the pollen grains examined under a microscope.



Nectar characterisation
The nectar was extracted from a nectary using a 50 microlitre glass tube. There was 30 microlitres of nectar extracted from the nectary of a single flower. The nectar was a clear liquid.

Measuring the nectar (sugar concentration) of the extracted nectar, it was 9.8% by volume measured using a refractometer.