Crocosmia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocosmia

http://courses.nres.uiuc.edu/hort343/images/bulbs/crocosmia.jpg

Azalea

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azalea

http://friendsofbryanpark.org/resource/azalea-care-month-by-month/

Hosta

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hosta_fortunei_Picta_form.jpg

http://knitspot.com/?p=673

Background

A monocotyledon flower has one cotyledon, which is the embryonic leaf of a seed-bearing plant. A dicotyledon flower has two cotyledons. These two types of flowers have many differences. A monocot has leaf veins branching out and flower petals in multiples of four or five. A dicot's leaf veins are parallel and have petals in multiples of three. (http://www.diffen.com/difference/Dicot_vs_Monocot). Since monocots and dicots are both flower producing plants, it can be deduced that they both evolved from the same flower producing plant millions of years ago. Although the flowers are not always conventional looking, all monocot and dicot plants produce some sort of flower. (http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/glossary/gloss8/monocotdicot.html) The evolutionary divergence date for monocots and dicots was approximately 200 million years ago, which results in the distinct differences between the two. They have had millions of years to evolve on completely separate paths and develop their unique traits. This date was estimated by reconstructing phylogenetic trees from chloroplast DNA sequences. Two methods were used to approach this. One method involved calibrating the rate of synonymous nucleotide substitution from the divergence of maize, wheat, and rice; while the second involved calibrating the rate of non synonymous substitution from the divergence of angiosperms and bryophytes.  (http://www.pnas.org/content/86/16/6201.full.pdf) 

Experimental Question Analysis

Our experimental question was does pollen morphology differ if the flower is a monocot or a dicot, our prediction/hypothesis at the beginning of this experiment was that the two monocot flowers would have many similarities while the dicot would look like a completely different species. In our pictures you can see that the Hosta and Crocosmia share both a similar shape and texture pattern. Both pollen specimens are "almond" shaped, and not only is their shape and texture similar but so is their size. The Alalea's shape is more spherical and is echinate. The Hosta's dimensions were 95.5um L 48.9um W while the Crocosmia had dimensions of 72um L and 32.5um W. The Azalea was almost semetrical in dimensions, measuring 33.1 L and 32.7 W.