Reproductive biology of Pittosporum dasycaulon Miq., (Family Pittosporaceae) a rare medicinal tree endemic to Western Ghats

BACKGROUND: For successful cultivation and conservation of plants a detailed knowledge of their reproductive biology is required. The reproductive features of trees are important to determine the diversity patterns and community structure of tropical forests. The present study on reproductive biology of Pittosporum dasycaulon, a rare medicinal tree, was conducted in the shola forests of Vaghamon hills, one of the foot hills of Southern Western Ghats of India from 2008–2011. RESULTS: The plant flowers profusely during February to April. Inflorescence is a raceme and the total number of flowers per inflorescence varies from 96–217. The flowers are comparatively small, hermaphrodite, short pedicellate, complete, zygomorphic, pentamerous, polypetalous, hypogynous and light cream in colour with an average length of 1.14 cm. Anthesis started at 08.30 h and the flowers were completely opened at approximately 09.30 h followed by anther deshiscence at 10.00-11.30 h. The pollen grains were trizonocolpate with 45 ± 5.6 μm in size. Acetocarmine staining showed 66 ± 6% fertile pollen at the time of anther dehiscence. The number of pollen grains in an anther is 5246 ± 845 and per flower is 26230 ± 1021. The stigma is wet, non-papillate, capitate and contains a thin film of exudates under the light microscope. The superior ovary is densely covered with papillate hairs and containing 3–8 ovules. The important floral visitors include bees and butterflies. The plant is self-incompatible and an out crosser. Fruit set under open-pollination was poor (24%) with 58.3% fruits having seeds inside. There was no fruit set in manually self pollinated flowers while over 57% of the cross pollinated flowers set fruits. CONCLUSIONS: Our study presents a detailed account on reproductive biology of this medicinal tree which may help in the conservation and genetic improvement of this particular taxa. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1999-3110-55-15) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.