Resumen de Reproductive ecology of nutritionally important perennial climber Canavalia gladiata (Fabaceae: Faboideae)
Tripurana Suneetha Rani, A.J. Solomon Raju
Canavalia gladiata is a fast-growing perennial climber, which blooms throughout the year, with prominent flowering and fruiting during the rainy season. At the base of leaf petiole and flower pedicel, it produces button-shaped extra-floral nectaries, with minute volume of nectar with low sugar concentration. Ants feeding on these nectaries protect the plant from herbivores during leaf flushing, flowering and fruiting.
The flowers’ resupinate monomorphic, is an explosive pollination mechanism adapted for tripping and nototribic pollination by the large-bodied Carpenter Bees of genus Xylocopa. The plant is protandrous but unfunctional, because the stigmatic surface is ruptured by the nectar-seeking Carpenter Bees to enable pollen germination and, hence, pollination is obligately pollinator-dependent. The plant is facultatively xenogamous but in open pollinations it is able to set a low fruit-set rate compensated by a high seed set.
Its year-long prolific flowering ensures constant production of seeds. Seed dispersal occurs by explosive pod dehiscence and gravity and the dry season is ideal for that event, while in the rainy season seed germination and new plant production take place.
