Emeritus Prof Tells CBC that Plant’s “Sneeze” on Video May Be a First

A video capturing a plant “sneezing” out pollen may be the only recording of its kind. University of Guelph emeritus professor Peter Kevan, School of Environmental Sciences, was quoted in a CBC article discussing how Paula Maria Montoya-Pfeiffer, a master’s student at the University of Sao Paulo, captured a plant’s explosive release of pollen on camera. Kevan came across the shrub called Boehmeria caudata in December of 2014 while leading a group of students in pollination biology in Brazil. He then began working with George Poinar, a leading expert on amber fossils, who had discovered a fossil of a plant found in Mexico and the Dominican Republic also caught in mid-release of pollen. Both studies were published in the journal Botany.