D. pedicellaris x callistos

[dieter]

Dear all,

this hybrid was testing my patience for quite some time, but finally I was able to get a glimpse on the flowers. I somehow have the impression, that the flowers will only open completely and intact in at least warm conditions. Furthermore, for whatever reason they do not (or only rarely) open on weekends! Fortunately, this long weekend the plants decided to make an exception of this rule.

So far, it was quite frustrating only to see the not yet opened and then the closed flower again. Only once I was able to work from home just to get a crippled flower:

But at least the colour is unexpected and certainly promising.

Finally, here is an intact flower:




Two plants in flower (actually, two generations: the plant grown from seeds and one grown from gemmae this winter).


The colour is very similar to D. 'Dorks Pink' even though in the picture below the Dorks Pink seems to be orange. I did not see that on my camera screen. Sorry for this. Otherwise I would have tried a little more until it would have been better.




The inflorescence: quite similar to D. pedicellaris.



Finally, two pictures of the plant (taken in may):





Enjoy!
Dieter

[hcarlton]

Gorgeous color on that one! the pics do seem to make it look a rather interesting peach color, is it in fact closer to pink?

[dieter]

The colour of the hybrid is more or less well represented which is why I was surprised to see the D. Dorks Pink so much off. Peach does describe it well. It is a reddish pink, something completely unexpected when crossing an orange flowered species with a white flowered one. But obviously, D. pedicellaris is not truly white flowered. I only expect this type of colour when crossing a pink/purple flowered with an orange flowered species (e.g. D. Dorks Pink).

Best regards
Dieter

[Not a Number]

Dieter

This year I was able to cross D. echinoblastus with D. helodes which yielded some seed.

What conditions do you find work best for germinating pygmy Drosera seeds?

[dieter]

Well, that is still unsolved for most species. I would try the bleach method listed on my homepage: www.tuberous-drosera.net/germination2.htm
This will give good germination for D. omissa, D. nitidula complex species, D. pulchella and probably some others. But for many other species you still need some luck and probably also some patience. I keep working on this :-)

Cheers
Dieter

[Not a Number]

Interesting, I read over your pages on germination. I was able to germinate D. pygmaea without any treatment in my petiolaris (tropical) tank.

The Stormsvleikloof D. trinervia germinates for me without any special treatment. I germinate them indoors at ambient humidity (no bags or covers), ambient (room) temperature with the media very wet (water kept just below the surface). It takes 4-8 weeks for first germination unless the temperatures are too warm say above 23-24°F. I've germinated them at different times of the year so photoperiod change doesn't seem to be a major factor. I've tried treatment with GA3 and smoke water from smoke discs (you can buy them from Silverhill in South Africa). Treatment did not seem to make a difference.

[dieter]

I did not try D. pygmaea seeds yet, so I can not comment on this species. It may be one of the easier to germinate like the occidentalis complex species which I neither tested a lot so far. I had some of those species popping up in places where I did not plant them, but I can not totally exclude that they were transferred by gemmae, especially since I have D. eneabba popping up in pots where I never planted any. But as those do not produce seeds by themselves (they need a second clone for pollination), they are most likely spreading through gemmae.

My experience with D. trinervia is that a heat treatment is needed to get germination. If you did not observe this, this may either be the case because the seeds already were exposed to heat prior to sowing.
With respect to the photoperiod I hope that I did not write that you need the variation to get germination. You need a certain photoperiod which you will get when growing at ambient conditions with natural daylight some time in spring and some time in fall. One example, if I place a pot with D. trinervia seeds in my wintergarden, I will see some (but very little) germination some time in spring and good germination some time in fall, no matter whether I will keep it moist in between or not. If I place the same pot in my basement shelves with constant photoperiod they may indeed germinate throughout the year - if the photoperiod is in the range what they need. I used to germinate and grow D. auriculata and D. peltata there throughout the year. You can do this to raise them a little faster.

With respect to D. trinervia stratification I can actually run an experiment comparing the heat treatment with no treatment at all.

Best regards
Dieter

[Not a Number]

Hi Dieter

The D. trinervia seed was collected from my plants that I obtained at mature size in early 2007. The only heat treatment the seeds may have gotten were ripening in the seed capsules in the sun. The plants produce quite a large number of seed and I have been distributing it for several years. The D. trinervia seed in the ICPS seedbank the past few years has come mainly from me.

A few years ago I took the time to try to tease out the most successful method to germinate seed of this species. I contacted people that I had given seed to them and compared the successes and failures. Successes - sowing seed on pots, left outdoors in the sun over summer (dry), watering in late fall, sowing in pots and keeping the media moist in a greenhouse - pots not covered or bagged. Failures - heat, smoke or GA3 treatment of some sort or in combination, pots bagged and put under lights.

I typically reseed my pots whenever I get seeds. I observed that often I would get seedlings at the end of May or in June. My plants usually flower March-April. However, these could have been seed from the previous year.

Since there were reports of successful germination without heat treatment I decided to skip this to see if smoke or GA3 treatment would have an effect. The parameters I looked at: heat pad/no heat pad, smoke/no smoke, GA3/No GA3, bagged/unbagged. I tried every permutation of the parameters, i.e. bagged, untreated, heat pad; unbagged, untreated, heat pad, bagged, untreated, no heat pad, unbagged, untreated, no heat pad; etc. The heat pad is thermostat controlled and set with a soil probe to keep the temperature at around 82°F(28°C). After 4 weeks only the unbagged, unheated pots showed germination. After about 12 weeks about 75% of the seed in these had germinated. After this time the pots with germinated seed were moved to an east facing windowsill (previously under lights). Seeds continued to germinate up until the time plants started signs of approaching dormancy. There did not seem to be any effect from the GA3 or smoke treatment in neither the time for first germination to begin nor the percentage of germination. None of the heat pad group showed germination at the 3 month point. Water levels were kept near the surface of the media in all groups. At the three month point, the bagged, unheated pots were unbagged and after about 4 weeks germination began in these pots too. These were done mid/late autumn when my indoor temperatures seldom get over the high 70's F (>25C).

Now I just sow the seed on a pot, put it on the windowsill unbagged, keep the water level very high and wait 1-2 months. The only time they won't germinate is in the late summer/early fall when the indoor and outdoor temperatures can get in the mid 80s or higher (>29C). It doesn't matter if it is fresh seed or seed that has been cold-dry stored in the refrigerator for up to 4 years.

You can get them to skip dormancy if you keep the media wet and the temperatures down. But mature plants tend not to flower in the spring if you do this.