Bernhardt & Weston, The pollination ecology of Persoonia 
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correspondence from Norman Rodd concerning the unusual mode of pollen foraging 
by these bees on Persoonia mollis. Rodd deposited a voucher specimen (NSW 21325) 
from one of the shrubs visited by Leioproctns bees. It has since been identified as 
P. mollis subsp. ledifolia as cited by Krauss & Johnson (1991). 
Rodd described how these members of the Colletidae landed on the recurved tepals, 
and then pushed both their front legs down the longitudinal slit on each side of an 
anther, scooping out pollen. The pollen retained in the claws of each front leg was 
then transferred to the collection hairs on the back legs. Rayment (1950) also included 
a detailed, pen and ink illustration showing how the smooth clypeus of the bee 
slides down against the central style while the bee inserts its tongue between the 
tepal and the ovary stalk to probe for nectar secreted by four receptacular glands. 
Rodd excavated the bees' burrows for Rayment and noted that the pollen loaves or 
'puddings' made by Cladocerapis bees smelled strongly of Persoonia flowers. 
Unfortunately, many of Rayment's publications have since been discredited by 
contemporary entomologists, so his field observations and microscopy must be 
repeated and rechecked. However, while other entomologists have studied bees that 
forage on Persoonia species (Maynard 1992,1994,1995), they have never determined 
which bee species are true pollinators, nectar thieves or pollen scavengers. In fact, 
Rayment (1950) provides the only written record and illustration of Persoonia pollen 
removed from the body of a few bees belonging to the same genus. 
Maynard (1992, 1994) suggested that two subgenera in Leioproctns (Cladocerapis and 
Filiglossa), are oligolectic (sensu Michener 1979) on Persoonia. However, Maynard (1992) 
also reported that some Leioproctns spp. in subgenus Cladocerapis were also captured 
on flowers of Leptospermnm sp., Lomatia silaifolia and Claoxylon australis. This suggests 
that not all species in subgenus Cladocerapis forage exclusively on Persoonia. 
Establishing which animals are responsible for the majority of successful pollinations 
in Persoonia is important for two reasons. Firstly, artificial pollinations and allozyme 
electrophoresis by Krauss (1994a, 1994b) have shown that the Persoonia mollis complex 
is dominated by outcrossing genotypes. Self-pollination rarely results in successful 
seedset. Small sample sizes suggest that the successful pollination of one genotype by 
a second was usually no greater than the distance between immediate neighbours 
(Krauss 1994a, 1994b). Therefore, it is possible that pollen dispersal within the P. mollis 
complex is clumped or leptokurtic (sensn Richards 1986). 
Second, in eastern Australia Persoonia species show an unusually high level of FI 
hybrids (Weston 1991; Table 1). Therefore, fieldwork on the pollination ecology of 
sympatric species also helps assess degrees of weakness in different, prezygotic 
barriers to interspecific isolation. 
Materials and methods 
Study sites 
Wild populations of 20 species of Persoonia (Table 2) and two hybrid plants were studied 
at 17 different sites. Detailed descriptions of those localities are listed in the appendix. 
Recording data on reproductive features 
To record the floral phenology of each taxon in this study, the month of collection of 
each flowering specimen held at NSW was recorded. Multiple collections of the same 
taxon made by the same collector on the same day were recorded as a single datum. 
The resulting data were tabulated as the frequency of flowering records for each 
month for each taxon. 
