This site is designed to provide a widely accessible pollen reference library for the Fingerlakes region of Western New York.

The pollen presented here were collected from plants flowering in 15 apple orchards across the Fingerlakes region from April 1 through September 30, 2014. The floral surveys were conducted weekly and involved a general transect around the perimeter of the orchard, and three standardized 50 m transects through the center of the orchard.  All flowering plants were identified and pollen was collected from all flowering species when possible.

Pollen grains were stained with Calberla’s fluid, a solution of basic fuchsin (Bernhardt 2005) and photographed at 40x on a light microscope.  Measurements are included with each pollen grain, and where possible, were averaged across multiple representative grains for each species.  We include multiple orientations and levels of focus when possible.  (Some of the species identified in the orchards are not included for various reasons.)

The pollen grains represented here were not acetolyzed.  If you have questions or concerns, or if you find an error, please leave a comment below, or send an email to lrusso@cornell.edu.

This work was funded by Cornell University and a USDA AFRI grant.