National Pollination Survey of Tree Fuchsia

How to carry out the survey

Firstly you need to establish that the plants are flowering. Tree fuchsia has a long flowering season through spring and into summer (from July-August to around December) and in general the further north your site is the earlier the plants will start to flower. Sampling earlier in the season is usually best.

When you carry out the survey, aim to record data for 10 hermaphrodite plants and 5 female plants at any one site. There are usually fewer female plants in a population, so if you can’t find 5 female plants record data from as many as you can find.

The main measurement of the survey (pollen load on the stigma) is recording how well the flowers are being visited by birds (and having pollen deposited on the stigma). We have devised a system that allows people to easily score the amount of pollen that can be seen on the stigma, using a scale of 0-4.

For each tree record the pollen load on the stigma for 10 young (early or middle in age) flowers (i.e. the greenish ones). DON’T USE OLD/RED FLOWERS (i.e. anthers withered, flower fully red in colour).

You will also need to note the sex of the tree: Hermaphrodite or Female. Remember the flowers on a female tree are smaller than the hermaphrodite flowers and lack the large anthers with the distinctive blue pollen.

Hermaphrodite (left) and female flowers (right)

There are separate areas on the record sheet for you to fill in this information.

If you are unable to download the survey form and print it, contact us and we will post some copies of the form to you.

Summary of what you need to do:

printable version (pdf)

1: Print the survey form (one per site) and take it with you. Also take a hand lens if possible.

2: Select the site. A site is any area that has a good sized (10’s to 100’s of fuchsia trees) population of tree fuchsia.
On the record sheet note:
A geo-reference for the site (latitude and longitude or Easting and Northing).
Altitude of the site (this is optional).
The date you carried out the survey.
Your name and contact details (your phone number or email address).

What if the site only has a few fuchsia trees at it? Still carry out the survey as we are interested in finding out about pollination services for different sized fuchsia populations.

3: Select 10 hermaphrodite and 5 female trees that are flowering, or as many as you can find up to these numbers.

4: For each tree find 10 youngish flowers (remember greenish flowers are what you want to find).

5: For each flower score the pollen load that you can see on the yellow stigma of youngish flowers, using the 0-4 scale (see below). You may find it helpful to use a hand lens to check if there are small amounts of pollen on the stigma. Note on the survey sheet whether you have used a hand lens.

If you are scoring pollen loads of 3 or 4 for the flowers at the site then there are good visitation levels for fruit set. However if the flowers are scoring 0 or 1 then there are very low levels of visitation at the site and fruit set will be poor.

Define the pollen load as one of the following:

		0 = None, can’t see any blue pollen on the stigma
		1 = 1-5% of the stigma covered in pollen. Only a few specks can be seen on the stigma.
		2 = 6-20% of the stigma is covered in pollen. Up to a fifth of the stigma is covered in pollen.
		3 = 21-40% of the stigma is covered. Over a fifth but under a half of the stigma is covered in pollen.
		4 = 41-100% Lots of the stigma is covered in pollen.