Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Pollen |
PollenNoun1. A fine powder produced by the anthers of seed-bearing plants; fine grains contain male gametes. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "pollen" was first used: 1760 usage as a botanical term. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Environment | The fertilizing element of flowering plants; background air pollutant. (references) |
Health | The male fertilizing element of flowering plants analogous to sperm in animals. It is released from the anthers as yellow dust, to be carried by insect or other vectors, including wind, to the ovary (stigma) of other flowers to produce the embryo enclosed by the seed. The pollens of many plants are allergenic. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Pollen is a fine powder of microspores (called pollen grains) that constitute the male gametes of higher plants. Pollen is produced in the flower by the antherss. The smallest pollen grain, that of the Forget-me-not plant (Myosotis sp.), is around 6 μm (0.006 mm).
Pollen grains from a variety of common plants:
sunflower (Helianthus annuus), morning glory (Ipomea purpurea),
hollyhock (Sildalcea malviflora), lily (Lilium auratum), primrose
(Oenothera fruticosa), and castor bean (Ricinus communis''). ''The transfer of pollen grains to the female flower part (carpel) is called pollination. Ribbonweed's pollen floats to the female flower by a boat-like structure.
The study of pollen is called palynology and is highly useful in paleontology, archeology and forensics.
Allergy to pollen is called hay fever. Generally pollens that cause allergies are those of anemophilous (literally wind-loving) plants, which produce very lightweight pollen grains in great quantities for wind dispersal, and subsequently contacting human nasal passages through breathing. Anemophilous plants generally have inconspicuous flowers. Entomophilous (literally insect-loving) plants produce pollen which is relatively heavy and sticky, for dispersal by insect pollinators.
In the US, people often falsely blame the conspicuous entomophilous goldenrod flower for allergies. Since this pollen does not become airborne, only way to get goldenrod pollen on your nasal passages would be to stick the flower up your nose. The late summer and fall pollen allergies are usually caused by ragweed, a common, anemophilous and inconspicuous flower. Arizona was once regarded as a haven for people with pollen allergies, since ragweed does not grow in the desert. However, as suburbs grew and people began establishing irrigated lawns and gardens, ragweed gained a foothold and Arizona lost its claim of freedom from hay fever. Anemophilous spring blooming plants such as oak, hickory, and pecan; and early summer grasses may also induce pollen allergies. Cultivated flowers are most often entomophilous and do not cause allergies.
The "tapping panel dryness disease" of the rubber plant is caused by a virus transmitted on pollen grains.
Pollen is sold as a nutritional supplement, marketed as "bee pollen" (even though it is of course from flowers).
See also pollination
honeybee carrying pellet of pollen in its corbicula
External Links
- Paleobotany and Palynology at the Florida Museum of Natural History
- Palynology at the University of Arizona
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Pollen."
| The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted. | |||
| Entry | Source | Expression | Field |
POLLEN | English | Publishers on information highways | Computing, Education |
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |||
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Do you realize what we will do with this pollen, Pinky (Animaniacs; writing credit: Nick Dubois; Peter Hastings) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Pollen Fever (1993) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books | |||
Music |
| ||
Consumer Goods | |||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Oil globules mixed with heavy pollen from surrounding vegetation following the April 7th Swanson Creek oil spill. Credit: America's Coastlines. |  | The adult stage of the western corn rootworm (shown searching for pollen on corn silk) is the target of ARS' first areawide integrated pest management program for corn. P. Credit: USDA ARS News; photo by Tom Hlavaty.. |
 | Bee gathering pollen on flowers in the high Steens WSA. (WSA 2-85F). Credit: Scott Moore. | ||
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
 |  |
| "Bee collecting pollen" by Dave Forsey Commentary: "A bit 'noisy' but I can only blame the camera for that ;)." | "Bee in yellow flower" by Dustin Byerley Commentary: "A macro shot of a bee collecting pollen in a yellow flower. Shot on a Canon 10D 6.3MP digital SLR." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. | |
| Author | Quotation |
James Russell Lowell | Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | Your airways react to things like smoke, dust, pollen, or other things. (references) | |
Moreover, FDA is requiring that eight grass and pollen extracts be standardized. (references) | ||
The seashore, for example, may be an effective retreat for many with pollen allergies. (references) | ||
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Pollen" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 99.70% of the time. "Pollen" is used about 334 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 99.7% | 333 | 15,728 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.3% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 334 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following table summarizes the usage of "pollen" based on a population census conducted in the United States. Ranks and frequencies are based on all names reported and classified. |
| Name | Usage/Gender | Usage per 100 million Persons | Rank in USA |
| Pollen | Last name | 130 | 54,867 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits. | |||
Expressions using "pollen": allergic to pollen ♦ pollen count ♦ pollen fever ♦ pollen grain ♦ pollen mass ♦ pollen sac ♦ pollen tube ♦ ragweed pollen. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "pollen": pollen-and-honey, Pollen-b, pollen-bearing, pollen-carriers, pollen-dated, pollen-dusted, pollen-dusty, pollen-grain, pollen-laden, pollen-spattered, pollen-transport, pollen-tube, pollen-tubes. | |
Ending with "pollen": grass-pollen, nectar-and-pollen. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "pollen"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | polen, pjalm, endëz. (various references) | |
Arabic | لقاح (inoculation, vaccine, virus), طبقة غبارية على جسم حشرة. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | цветен прашец. (various references) | |
Chinese | 花粉 . (various references) | |
Czech | pyl, opylit (pollinate). (various references) | |
Danish | pollen. (various references) | |
Dutch | pollen, stuifmeelkorrels, stuifmeel. (various references) | |
Farsi | گرده(گ.ش.), گرده افشانی کردن , دانه گرده . (various references) | |
Finnish | siitepöly. (various references) | |
French | pollen. (various references) | |
German | Pollen, blütenstaub. (various references) | |
Greek | γύρη. (various references) | |
Hebrew | אבקה (powder). (various references) | |
Hungarian | virágpor (farina), pollen, hímpor (dust, farina, scale). (various references) | |
Indonesian | tepung sari. (various references) | |
Italian | polline (dust). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 花粉 , 花粉 . (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | かふん. (various references) | |
Korean | 꽃가루. (various references) | |
Papago | chu'i (flour). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | ollenpay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | pólen (farina). (various references) | |
Romanian | polen (dust). (various references) | |
Russian | пыльца. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | polen, pelud. (various references) | |
Spanish | polen. (various references) | |
Swedish | pollen. (various references) | |
Turkish | polen, çiçek tozu (dust). (various references) | |
Turkmen | tozga. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | квітковий пилок. (various references) | |
Welsh | paill (flour). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | pollen. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "pollen": pollened, pollening, pollenizer, pollenizers, pollenoses, pollenosis, pollens. (additional references) | |
Words containing "pollen": equipollence, equipollences, equipollent, equipollently, equipollents, sporopollenin, sporopollenins. (additional references) | |
| |
"Pollen" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Dollenz, Kpolleh, pahlen, pallend, Pallene, pallent, pallon, Penllyn, pilen, pillen, Ploben, Pohlenz, Pohlin, Polan, poleg, polen, Polena, Polenov, polin, Pollan, polland, polle, Pollehn, polleny, Pollet, Polley, Pollia, pollin, Pollina, Polney, Polten, polyene, polyn, Povlsen, pulen, Pulleine, Pulleyn, Pulne, rollen, tollen, wollen. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "pollen" (pronounced pÄ"lun) |
| 4 | -Ä" l u n | fallen, stollen. |
| 3 | -l u n | felon, adrenaline, Alan, Ballon, befallen, Billon, bouillon, Callan, Chamberlain, chaplain, colon, crestfallen, discipline, elan, gallon, globulin, gremlin, insulin, javelin, kaolin, Kremlin, lanolin, Magdalen, Marlin, masculine, melon, Mullen, muskmelon, muslin, pelon, penicillin, pentathlon, phenolphthalein, porcelain, solan, Solon, stolen, sullen, swollen, talon, Tolan, triathlon, vanillin, villain, watermelon, woolen, woollen, Zeppelin. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "e-l-l-n-o-p" | |
-1 letter: pelon. | |
-2 letters: enol, leno, lone, lope, noel, nope, open, peon, pole, poll, pone. | |
-3 letters: ell, eon, lop, ole, one, ope, pen, pol. | |
-4 letters: el, en, lo, ne, no, oe, on, op, pe. | |
| Words containing the letters "e-l-l-n-o-p" | |
+1 letter: pollens. | |
+2 letters: bonspell, plotline, pollened, prunello, unpolled, volplane. | |
+3 letters: allophane, allophone, alpenglow, bonspells, cellphone, opulently, phellogen, planeload, plotlines, pointelle, pollening, pollinate, prunellos, repolling, upswollen, volplaned, volplanes. | |
+4 letters: allophanes, allophones, alpenglows, cellophane, cellphones, chopfallen, compelling, floatplane, mellophone, personally, phellogens, planeloads, pointelles, pollenizer, pollenoses, pollenosis, pollinated, pollinates, pollinizer, pollinoses, polylysine, polyolefin, polyphenol, polyvalent, pommelling, potentilla, propellant, propellent, propelling, septillion, spellbound, unpolluted. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Slideshow 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Images: Digital Art 8. Quotations: Familiar | 9. Quotations: Non-fiction 10. Usage Frequency 11. Names: Frequency 12. Expressions | 13. Expressions: Internet 14. Translations: Modern 15. Translations: Ancient 16. Abbreviations | 17. Acronyms 18. Derivations 19. Rhymes 20. Anagrams | 21. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
