Explosive wind‐pollination in a monoecious plant, Laportea bulbifera (Urticaceae)

Laportea bulbifera (Ulticaceae) is a monoecious plant that has a unique sexual expression: female flowers form on the upper part and male flowers on the lower part on an individual shoot. Therefore, for the seed reproduction, pollen needs to be transferred from the lower (male) to the upper (female) flowers. Our observations of male flowers confirmed that pollen was dispersed upward by “explosive wind pollination.” A male flower has five stamens, and when the petals are open, the stamens are caught in a pistillode. With the growth of the stamens, they are released from the pistillode and then straightened with a spring‐like movement of the filament. At the same time, the anthers dehisce, and the pollen is dispersed. The explosive release of pollen from the anthers and light wind in the habitat (forest edge or gap) contributes to wind pollination in L. bulbifera. This figure shows sequential photographs of the male flowers within 0.1 second. It can be readily recognized that pollen was released upwards from the male flowers like white dust.