Pollen dust
Reconstructing
the stories that bogs hold is a bit like detective
work. You need the right tools and methods to extract
the evidence, then you examine it and finally piece
together all the information, using bits of evidence
from other sources, like archaeology and history.
Bog detectives:
working out the story of GHM
Other pieces of the puzzle>
Bogs can tell us so much about the past,
so there are many different methods that scientists
can use when they work on peat bogs. On Greenhead
Moss, people who study past ecology - palaeoecologists
- have used the study of pollen grains, or palynology,
to reconstruct the story of the past 10000 years
around the bog.
What is pollen?
Pollen is the male reproductive part of
the flower. Pollen is microscopic, but sometimes you
might what see looks like yellow dust left on cars
during summer when pine trees are flowering. Next
time you see a big poppy flower or a lily, look
inside – all that purple or orange-yellow dust
is pollen.
Flowers make pollen to fertilise the
egg, or female part of the flower. This is called pollination.
So without pollen, there would be no seeds. Most
people know about pollen because it causes hayfever.
This is your body’s reaction to the
‘foreign’ object which you have breathed in
or which the wind has blown into your eyes. Your body
is trying to get rid these foreign particles.
Pollination happens when the pollen and flower
recognise each other, so unlike your body, the pollen
is not rejected.
Under a microscope, pollen is far more
than almost-invisible dust: each grain has a
patterned wall made of several layers. The pollen
wall is made of a complicated chemical compound
called sporopollenin, which is special because
it is very tough, so pollen grains survive very well
for thousands of years in waterlogged sediments like
bogs. The pictures below show you some examples of
pollen shapes and surface patterns.
More
