Path Analysis: Pollination

Abstract Naturalists have recognized the importance of pollination in plant reproduction for more than 2500 years (Baker 1983). However, modem attempts to understand the details of this interaction have faced numerous difficulties. The major complication is that plant reproduction involves a number of sequential and relatively distinct stages, and experimental investigation of all the stages simultaneously is not feasible. Consider, for example, reproduction of the herbaceous monocarp (dies after reproducing) scarlet gilia (Ipomopsis aggregata, Polemoniaceae), found in mountains of western North America.