Pollen Pollen Pollen is a fine to coarse powdery substance comprising pollen grains which are male microgametophytes of seed plants, which produce male gametes (sperm cells). Pollen grains have a hard coat made of sporopollenin that protects the gametophytes during the process of their movement from the stamens to the pistil of flowering plants, or from the male cone to the female cone of coniferous plants. If pollen lands on a compatible pistil or female cone, it germinates, producing a pollen tube that transfers the sperm to the ovule containing the female gametophyte. Individual pollen grains are small enough to require
Parthenium hysterophorus production, an additive in manure for biogas production, as a biopesticide, and as green manure and compost. Contact with the plant causes dermatitis and respiratory malfunction in humans, and dermatitis in cattle and domestic animals. The main substance responsible is parthenin, which is dangerously toxic. It also is responsible for bitter milk disease in livestock when their fodder is polluted with "Parthenium" leaves. Among other allelopathic effects of the species, the presence of "Parthenium" pollen grains inhibits fruit set in tomato, brinjal, beans, and a number of other crop plants. Light infestations of "Parthenium hysterophorus" in cultivated fields may be