Hand-pollinating Ceratozamia hildae
by Jody Haynes

This is my second article on the hand-pollination of cycads...and only my second attempt at doing so! 

The story begins about two-and-a-half months ago (late March, 2001) when I acquired a large female Ceratozamia hildae from a friend (photo at left). The plant was in a 25-gallon container and had three large caudexes about 8" in diameter--and eight heads in total. I was so proud of this new cycad, that I convinced my wife to allow me to plant it in the ground in the front yard. About two weeks later, I purchased a brown emergent male C. hildae from Tom Broome and planted it next to the big female, with the hope that I could use the pollen from the male to pollinate the female (this hope was overly optimistic, in hind site--see below).

About four weeks ago, one of the three main heads on the female began to send up a cone. It grew slowly over the next three weeks until it reached about 6" long and then seemed to stop growing. Just the other day (29 May 2001), I was getting in my truck to go to work and I just happened to glance over at the cone. I noticed that it had changed somehow. It hadn't gotten any larger, but something was noticeably different from 20 feet away. So, I got out of my truck and went to check it out. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that each of the cone scales had relaxed, leaving a gap between them all. What was most noticeable up close was the distinct reddish edge of each individual cone scale (see photo at right). I also noticed two ovules attached to each scale (which you probably can't see in the photo, because, unfortunately, I do not have a macro lens on my digital camera).

Of course, it was too much to ask for that the male would have a cone full of pollen at the time that I needed it most. I had asked Tom a couple weeks earlier when he expected the male to begin coning, and he told me that it had already coned this year (for some strange, and as yet unexplained reason, several of Tom's Ceratozamia species coned early this year). 

Once again, I made arrangements with the folks at the Montgomery Botanical Center to pick up some pollen that same day. Judy Kay was nice enough to provide me with three packets of pollen...and she even explained to me how she normally dry-pollinates Ceratozamia cones. She uses a large plastic syringe with a ball attached rather than a plunger (apparently, the ball provides greater control). Well, I certainly didn't have that type of equipment at home, so I made a quick trip to the local drug store and picked up some supplies.

I purchased a baby ear syringe (which is basically a large bulb) and a package of eye droppers, one of which had a bent tip (photo at left). I inserted the small tip of the baby ear syringe (bulb) into the glass eye dropper tube (after having removed the small black bulb, which was not going to be at all useful) and...voila! I had made my very own dry-pollinating apparatus...in less than five minutes and for around $7.00! (See completed apparatus in the photo to the right.)

I was now ready to go outside and pollinate my "baby". So, I took my newly fashioned apparatus, my newly acquired pollen, and a small shot glass--in this case, a Jaegermeister shot glass that hasn't seen any use for about ten years--and went outside to prepare.

The next step in the process was to carefully open one of the pollen envelopes and--trying not to get any on my skin (cycad pollen is toxic) and trying not to spill any at the same time--empty the pollen into the shot glass. This is easier said than done...believe me (photos below). 

Emptying the pollen into the glass can be tricky...and care should be taken.
(Click on photos to enlarge)

The only thing left to do now was to carefully suck up the pollen into the apparatus and gently blow it into the gaps between the cone scales. Once again, this is easier said than done. Below, you can see how I sucked up the pollen--trying to get it into the glass eye dropper tube but not all the way up into the bulb--and then carefully blew it into the cone. If you look closely at the bottom right photo (enlarged, of course), you should be able to see a bit of residual pollen on two or three of the scales.

Sucking up pollen	Blowing pollen into cone	Cone covered in plastic bag
(Click on photo to enlarge)

The last thing I did was to cover the cone with a plastic bag because it looked like it was going to rain. You may wonder why I was worried about it raining...well, I didn't want all the pollen to simply wash away, and I didn't want to risk the chance of the cone rotting from getting too much moisture inside of it (which is why you pollinate Ceratozamia cones with the dry method in the first place). I will update this article next year when the cone drops its seeds.

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Update

In early May, 2002, a new cone emerged from a separate head on this same female C. hildae plant. On 24 May 2002, I pollinated it. The first cone is so full of seeds and weighted down that it is practically laying on the ground; it should drop its seeds very soon.

Overall view of both cones	First cone full of seeds
(Click on photo to enlarge)

Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Judy Kay and Terrence Walters at Montgomery Botanical Center in Miami, FL, for the pollen and for the guidance in the dry pollination technique.

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