Numerous efforts have recently been focused on designing and synthesizing efficient nanostructures electrode materials for high-efficiency energy storage. Herein, hierarchical porous and hollow NiO elliptical microstructures constructed from nanosheets are synthesized by utilizing the renewable, costeffective and widespread native rape pollen grains as template. Benefiting from the unique morphology, pollen-templated NiO shows outstanding electrochemical performances as electrode of supercapacitor, such as high specific capacitance (198.7 mAh g(-1) at 1 A.g(-1)), excellent rate capability (89.2 mAh g(-1) at 30 A.g(-1)) and long cycling life. Besides, asymmetric supercapacitor device was assembled by using pollen-templated NiO and activated carbon, which deliver excellent cycling stability (103.3% retention after 10,000 cycles) as well as high energy/power density (a high energy density of 66.4 Wh kg(-1) and power density of 22.2 kW kg(-1)). Moreover, the low-cost pollen template-based strategy is found to be a versatile method to prepare other porous and hollow elliptical microstructure of transition-metal oxides. (C) 2017 Published by Elsevier B.V.