GRE Reading Comprehension: ETS-GRE阅读ETS - IVQYZ44K39BPI5I88

Experiments show that insects can function as pollinators of cycads, rare, palmlike tropical plants. Furthermore, cycads removed from their native habitats – and therefore from insects native to those habitats – are usually infertile. Nevertheless, anecdotal reports of wind pollination in cycads cannot be ignored. The structure of cycads male cones is quite consistent with the wind dispersal of pollen, clouds of which are released from some of the larger cones. The male cone of Cycas circinalis, for example, sheds almost 100 cubic centimeters of pollen, most of which is probably dispersed by wind. Furthermore, the structure of most female cycad cones seems inconsistent with direct pollination by wind. Only in the Cycas genus are the females' ovules accessible to airborne pollen, since only in this genus are the ovules surrounded by a loose aggregation of megasporophylls rather than by a tight cone.