Myosotis pollen

As part of a larger study on the systematics of New Zealand forget-me-nots, the pollen of several species of Myosotis was examined to obtain taxonomically useful characters. Pollen grains were removed with permission from herbarium specimens from Te Papa's herbarium (WELT), as well as other national and international herbaria:

• 2016: AK, CHR, CONC, OTA and S
• 2018: AD, AK, BRI, CANB/CBG, CHR, HO, MEL, NSW, OTA and PERTH
• 2022: AK, CHR and OTA

The pollen grains were then prepared and imaged using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Several pollen characters were measured or scored from the images. Myosotis pollen from multiple taxonomic entities from New Zealand, Chile, Australia and New Guinea have been described and analysed statistically.

The results from these studies can be seen in three publications by Te Papa Botany Curator Heidi Meudt (Meudt 2016, Meudt et al. 2020, and Meudt 2026). These pollen data will be useful in helping determine how many New Zealand species of Myosotis there are, and how they can be distinguished from one another.

Special thanks to Niki Murray, Raoul Solomon and Yanyu He at Manawatū Microscopy and Imaging Centre, Palmerston North, who performed the SEM and took all the images. All images are copyright Te Papa.

You can see the Myosotis pollen images on Collections Online for 46 of the species that were sampled from Te Papa specimens. Click on the links to the species names on the left, or on the images of the "Related records" below.

You can see the Myosotis pollen SEM images from the external herbaria here: