In botany, "pseudogamy" is also related to
asexual reproduction.
Wilhelm Olbers Focke (1881) is usually cited for the definition of the term. What he actually said was (page 525, translated) :"III PSEUDOGAMY.In experiments to raise
hybrids, you sometimes get plants that resemble the mother plant, but partly in their sexual potency appear noticeably weakened. They have for this reason often been taken for hybrids. I suspect that in such cases the foreign pollen no real fertilization completed, but only gave the stimulus to produce the outer parts of fruit. The seeds, which are found in the fruit, are, in my opinion, not spawned by hybridization and generally not through sexual procreation, rather they are incurred
parthenogenetically." Thus in botany,
pseudogamy means any reproductive process that requires
pollination but does not involve male inheritance. It is sometimes used in a restrictive sense to refer to types of
agamospermy in which the
endosperm is fertilized but the embryo is not (see Pseudogamous apomixis, below). A better term for the restrictive sense is
centrogamy.
Pseudogamous apomixis Apomixis in flowering plants (
angiosperms) includes some types of vegetative reproduction and also
agamospermy, which is asexual reproduction through seeds (see
apomixis for more information). Agamospermy can occur through many different mechanisms, that pollination with compatible pollen can be required even in some species where endosperm development is autonomous. Pseudogamous apomixis occurs in many
families. It is particularly common in
Rosaceae and
Poaceae, where it occurs in many different
genera and
species. Examples of species with pseudogamous apomixis include the Himalayan blackberry
Rubus armeniacus and gamagrass
Tripsacum dactyloides. By contrast, autonomous apomixis is the rule among the many apomictic species of
Asteraceae including the common dandelion
Taraxacum officinale, and also occurs in several genera of
Poaceae. == References ==