Studies on Singapore Pollen

Abstract

The pollen flora of Singapore and Malaya has been studied very little despite the wealth of the lush tropical vegetation. In well-known works on pollen morphology (Wodehouse, 1935; Erdtman, 1952) few of the indigenous plants of Southeast Asia have been described and most of the descriptions are based on herbarium material. About five years ago, when several requests were made for identification of certain pollens in connection with a few allergic cases reported in the local hospitals, an interest developed in the study of Singapore pollen. Since then a reference pollen collection of about 400 local species has been built up in the Botany Department of the University of Singapore, and a study on the morphological characters of the pollen of these plants has been undertaken. This paper is the first report of these studies. The valuable works of Cranwell (1953), Erdtman (1943, 1952), Faegri and Iversen (1964), Hyde and Adams (1958), Nair (1965), and Wodehouse (1935), and the journals Grana Palynologica, Botanical Review (Faegri, 1956), and Pollen et Spores were consulted as chief sources of reference. The pollen characters of about 85 species which have not been described in these earlier works are dealt with here, and another eight species are redescribed to indicate the variations displayed by local forms.