The genus Aristolochia contains over 500 species, most of which occur at tropical latitudes around the world. Thus episode focuses mainly on 4 species from the new world tropics, primarily:
Aristolochia ringens,
Aristolochia leuconeura,
Aristolochia gigantea,
& Aristolochia grandiflora.
All these flowers have their sexual parts fused into a columnar structure called a Gynostemium with male parts (anthers) below and female parts (stigma) up top and are protogynous: they are facultatively female first then become male later in order to avoid self-pollination.
Neallyo
2025-04-04 17:26:39 +0000 UTC