The avocado's sex life has run on the same schedule for 42 million years
Each flower opens twice, once female and once male, and a gene called SDMYB has controlled the timing for the same span.
Avocado flowers perform the duty of both female and male flowers. The gene that controls them has been unchanged for 42 million years.
Each avocado flower opens twice over two days: first in its female phase, when it can receive pollen, and later in its male phase, when it releases pollen. Some plant varieties start this in the mornings, and others in the afternoon, greatly aiding in pollination.
The popular Hass is an A-type avocado. Growers will mix B-type pollinizers into their groves to improve fruit production. Problematically, the buddy trees produce less marketable fruit, but take up space and resources. Breeders can now create B-types that perform pollination duty while also producing fruit that people want to eat.
The gene, SDMYB, is not new. It has been running plants' sex lives for 42 million years. This astonishingly durable arrangement for deciding which flowers receive pollen before or after lunch must work extremely well to have remained unchanged for so long.
Breeders can now skip the ten-year getting-to-know-you phase.
via SFGate
Do the flowers ever pollinate themselves?