Resumen

DEVOTO, Mariano  y  MEDAN, Diego. Expected mating system, floral diversity and flower visitors of five species of iridaceae of the argentine pampas. Acta Bot. Venez. [online]. 2008, vol.31, n.2, pp.425-434. ISSN 0084-5906.

Iridaceae is an interesting plant family from the viewpoint of reproductive biology because the diverse floral structures of its species attract a gamut of different flower visitors. This work reports some reproductive aspects of five species of Iridaceae of the Salado river basin in the Argentine pampas: Cypella herbertii, Alophia lahue and three species of Sisyrinchium. C. herbertii exhibits a specialized interaction with oil-collecting bees, while the rest of the species studied had rather unspecialized visitors. For A. lahue and the species of Sisyrinchium analyzed estimations of expected mating system tend to underestimate the de-gree of autogamy found in previous experiments. Field observations verified the production of nectar in the flowers of C. herbertii and suggested that the reproductive success of this species might be pollen limited in one of the population studied.

Palabras clave : Floral diversity; flower visitors; mating system; oil flowers; pollen limitation; pollen-ovule ratio.