azaleatopia

=__AZALEATOPIA__ =

**Plant species**: most likely Kurume azaleas **Genus**: Rhododendron **Family**: Ericacae
 * Group Members:** Oliver, Lauren, Scott, Robbie, Queenie



Inflorescence: 3.3 - 4.1cm long, 1.5 - 2.2cm wide

Flowers: Red to pink with five petals and darker dappling on single petal

Positioning: Group of 2-3 flowers are held together with one sepal at 120 degrees

__**Floral Morphology**__

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__**Floral Variability**__

These measurements were taken from 6 Azalea flowers. They show that there is a noticeable difference between the height of the anther and stigma of approx 12mm, suggesting pollination by small insects such as bees, flies, wasps etc. This is accentuated by the UV fluorescent
 * Part || Mean (mm) || SD ||
 * Petal || 30.37 || 15.19 ||
 * Sepal || 5.46 || 0.51 ||
 * Filament || 27.39 || 3.93 ||
 * Anther head || 2.93 || 1.05 ||
 * Style + Stigma || 33.76 || 1.65 ||
 * Ovaries || 3.51 || 0.61 ||

__**Nectar Information:**__

Due to centuries of selective breeding, these flowers no longer produce nectar.

__**Pollen**__ **Information**

The pollen was found in small sticky bundles on each anther. It was highly fluorescent under UV light. Under the 40x optical lense, pollen was viewed as tetrapod shaped, with small motile organisms surrounding them.