I should imagine that a bee came along with some pollen from somewhere? Do they look like real seeds? Are birds attracted to them?? That is a very interesting questions you pose - I will be interested to hear more about this.

cwhitt said:I should imagine that a bee came along with some pollen from somewhere? Do they look like real seeds? Are birds attracted to them?? That is a very interesting questions you pose - I will be interested to hear more about this.

Every plant has a full head of seeds, yet they are pollenless, there's no way bees did this with no sunflowers growing nearby. Yes the seeds look real but haven't fully grown yet to be ripe. Guess I'll have to wait until then and open some.

So pollen and nectar aren't the same thing. The purpose a pollenless flower has as a cut flower is to avoid staining your stuff with the yellow powder. According to swallowtail seeds you will still get nectar and seeds.

How does the seed get fertilized then, if no pollen??

Bees fly a few miles so there must be one somewhere with pollen. Maybe a seedling from someones bird feeder.
Some articles say that pollen-less sunflowers are sterile males but according to this article, they are females so since you are getting seeds, Swallowtail must be right.
https://www.swallowtailgardens...

Yeah, I think there needs to be some pollen coming from somewhere - bees can travel for miles. No pollen, no seeds, just a flower.

One if the heads ripened and seeds started falling. All the seeds were empty. So yes they are all female but still develop seed shells just with no embryo. However, the plants I pollinated myself from using other sunflower pollen did produce seed with embryos.

Aha!

Beautiful! This looks similar to my Autumn beauty sunflowers. Do you know if they're they pollenless? Mine came back this year from seed drops. I only planted a packet of Chianti hybrid (and late 😬)
Here's a picture of Chianti hybrid pollenless I grew this year. It's brown - not the burgundy/purple shown on the packet. Very unique.

I can't see the picture.