Seed Production of Vegetable, Tuber and Spice Crops

Botany

• Two kinds of flowers on this umbelliferous plant.
  
• The first of the tiny yellow flowers to bloom on an umbel or hermaphrodite with a few isolated staminate ones.
  
• These hermaphrodite flowers are completely protandrous.
  
• After the five stamens of a blossom dehisce and their pollen drops off, the stigma becomes receptive and continues to be receptive for 2-4 days .
• The pollen remains viable for 10 hrs.
  
• Flower opening started at 6 A.M. and reached a maximum between noon and 2.00pm.

Figure 1.Inflorescence of fennel