Avonia & Crassula flowers and random seed capsules (3 pics)

I know I'm astonished myself at the amount of flower pics I'm posting this year. I guess it's the fact that we've been having a proper hot and sunny summer this year. The plants love it!

Now the pink flowering Avonia quinaria ssp. quinaria has opened its flower as well and I haven't missed it :) I'm getting heavily into Anacampseros/Avonia species lately, even ordered a book on them. My brain is preparing for the move into a new appartment with a balcony I haven't found yet XD

Crassula ausensis ssp. titanopsis has been already blooming for a while now with the flowers opening gradually (and the smell getting more noticeable unfortunatelly haha). The bouquets are lovely though and I'm really glad the plant is feeling well and happy. Last time it was blooming in March so it looks like it's doing it twice a year.

Today I also was productive harvesting the seeds from a couple of seed pods. I've cross-pollinated Aloinopsis rosulata and Aloinopsis rubrolineata (just because they were flowering at the same time, not because I was attempting some hybrid or anything XD) and Aloinopsis rosulata actually grew a big fat seed capsule with ar least 500 seeds inside. Email me if you're interesed in some seeds of this kind of a cross.

Also, my intentional attempt to get a hybrid between Stomatium alboroseum and Neohenricia sibbetii bore fruit of 33 seeds. I've already sown some of them today and hope to see them germinate soon. Exciting!

Here's a size difference between the two.

Naohenricia seed capsule (2 pics)

According to Steven Hammer hybrids between Neohenricia and Stomatium are possible and since both were flowering on my windowsill recently I tried cross-pollinating. At the moment I'm very proud to present you the nice and fat seed pod that my Neohenricia sibbetii is currently growing. This is the first time I see one on a Neohenricia and it's quite exciting. 

Also, this particular Neohenricia is friends with a Haworthia limifolia which is in fact this little cutting a year later. Neat! ;)

Anacampseros seed capsules (3 pics)

I honestly don't know much about Anacampseros except for my own observations but I remember reading somewhere that they are or can be self-fertile. Since my Anacampseros filamentosa ssp. namaquensis is currently flowering (I missed almost all of the flowers) I was wondering whether any seeds will develop. Some of the faded flowers drop their heads and fall off very soon.

Others stay upright and push the remaining sepals up like a hat with only some hair-like see-through fibers left. If you look closely you can see something is inside that looks like the rests of dried anthers. But in fact those are seeds!

The unusual and pretty unstable seed capsule measures only 6mm but there are over 60 seeds. The seeds are placed loosely inside and fall out at the slightest touch.

more surprise seed capsules (2 pics)

These pics were taken a month ago as it was still sunny. The good days. :) Now it rains all the time.

It appears that these two lithops have developed seed capsules after flowering. They didn't have a partner except for each other. White and yellow don't mix with lithops but any mesemb pollen can occasionally induce selfing. If there are indeed seeds inside I'll keep them to sow someday when I have the room for such experiments.

Strange thing about Avonia

My Avonia quinaria ssp. alstonii continues to surprise. Now explain this to me. From what I read everywhere Avonia quinaria is the only Anacampseros species that is not self-fertile hence needs a genetically different partner to develop seeds. Today I noticed three out of its flowers, now dried up, were still attached to the plant. Normally they drop very soon after they close, just as the other flowers did. Since I normally remove old rests of flowers or old leaves from my plants I pulled on them and felt they weren't exactly soft. It turns out there are seed pods with seeds inside. And most of them have a nice viable size and shape. How did this happen? It was flowering all alone.

 I remember Bob Stewart warned me once that these girls are trouble XD

new seed pods

Not much is happening on the windowsill these days. Some seedlings are regenerating, adults as well, but very slowly (that's okay, no rush). The Frithia seedlings are doing really well in their new pot, growing new leaves, getting bigger. I was hoping the Titanopsis would bloom but they don't seem to be active. Maybe in a month, like last year. Also, a couple more of the flowering stones have grown seed capsules even though I haven't pollinated anything. Nice to know they still try to fulfill the life circle.

seed capsule

A couple of days ago I removed the dried up petals (bugs love to hide there) and was a bit surprised to find a seed capsule underneath. Sometimes you have two plants of the same kind flowering, want to get seeds, pollinate and nothing happens. And then you have one flower flowering all on its own and there's a fruit. Go figure. :)

What is it?

Thia is a ripening seed pod of a Haworthia limifolia featured here before. The 50 cm flower stalk and around 70 flowers weren't in vain after all! The other parent is probably Astroloba skinneri - since the plants are similar and have been flowering together since weeks - probably pollinated by some insect. I'm curious to see the seeds :)

Harvest Special (video)

... or How To Harvest Lithops Seeds.

I normally scrape lithops seeds out of a seed capsule with a needle and it works fine if the seeds are big (like lesliei's) or there are not that many. Harvesting tiny karasmontana seeds lately I had to realise it takes too long and hurts my back and eyes. I don't know any other method other than throwing the seed capsule in water, but without any help not all of the seeds detach. Combining the water bath and a needle I was able to get the seeds out very quickly.

First you need a small shallow bowl and a piece of wet paper towel fitting the size of the bowl. The piece of towel goes into the bowl, then you can pour water into it.

Now you need a pair of (scissor) tweezers and a needle on a stick (a pensil will work). Make sure to clean out every section of the capsule properly.

Once all the seeds are out you just take out the paper and put it somewhere it can dry (it helps to lay another paper towel folded in several layers under it).

To put the dry seeds into a paper envelope I use a white brush. I find the seeds don't jump around much and you can count them as you go if needed.

Sometimes there's a whole lot of seeds in one tiny seed capsule.

titanopsis seeds

I've tried to pollinate my two titanopsis calcarea plants this year and apparently it worked. Both have developed seed capsules with nice fat seeds inside. 

I'm very fond of these plants, their leaves look like they're made of tiny stones or sand grains. If watered too much this interesting property will fade resulting in long leaves with very indistinct surface texture. "Less water" is the secret of a compact "grainy" plant.

UPD: There were more than 150 seeds inside!

new seed capsules

All of the four karasmontana seed capsules have dried up by now and react to water. Still, I'm going to leave the seeds inside for some time.

Click for a larger pic to see how thin the membrane is.

new tenants

Well, relatively new tenants. Several weeks ago I bought some plants from Kakteen-Haage and Atomic Plant Nursery but didn't have a chance to take pictures.

Since I didn't have any schwantesii in my collection it was about time to get a couple of those. Unfortunately because of the bad light and their winterly-wrinkly condition it is hard to see the pattern but they are really quite interesting.

C249 schwantesii v. marthae (from KH) have a red core and a light green crown around the lobes. I got them with flower buds and pollinated them once the flowers opened.

C248 schwantesii v. urikosensis (syn. kunjasensis) (from AP) have very distinguished karasmontana-ish dark lines.

Two two-headed C55 olivacea (from AT). Didn't have those before either - such unusual windows.

C53 hookeri v. marginata (from AT). I've had some losses among my own hookeri and obviously needed more :) Fun fact: the famous 'Shimada's Apricot' cultivar originates from C53.

C224 karasmontana v. aiaisensis (from KH) also had flower buds which have meanwhile turned into nice seed capsules.

PS: I've found more helmutii with growing flower buds recently. This is really great but I'm afraid it is a bit to late and they won't open. The plants themselves are already very wrinkly.

fulviflower

Absolutely forgot to post a picture of the fulviceps. It was taken on the 1st of July. There's a seed capsule now but probably empty.

harvest 2

Here are some pictures to illustrate the Green Horn success. :)

I didn't want to cut off the seed capsules, so I used a needle stuck on a pencil to dig out the seeds. It was easier than I thought because the lesliei seeds are quite big.

Anyway, don't forget to click on pics to enlarge~

 

harvest

It's February and you already can see what's in the seed capsules. There were a whole lot of seeds from lesliei 'Green Horn', but I was especially surprised to find seeds in the 'Ventergreen' seed capsule. The only flower didn't have a partner (but stood apart from all the others), so that I'm very curious to see how the 'kids' will look like. As a big Ventergreen fan I sure hope they look like their parent. :)

Make sure to click on the pic to see the seeds in XXL!

the "indifferent" aucampiae

These two aucampiae haven't seen water for ages but still no visible change, not yet. I've transplanted them recently from two separate into one 7x7 cm container. Not sure if it went well, not with these poker faces :)

something's happening underneath 2

During the last two or three weeks I don't remember seeing any sunlight. Even the pictures all turn out grey and cold. But maybe it isn't a bad thing, because that's how it is this time of the year, it's almost winter after all.

The plants are keeping busy though!

This is my first ever flowering lithops. It's very dear to me.

All three of the ventergreens are already changing their clothes. And this one has actually developed a nice seed capsule, even though it was away from all other flowering plants and didn't have a partner. I'm very curious if it will have seeds inside. Also, there are probably two heads growing underneath.

Hm, I don't remember showing you this plant before. I got it together with the lesliei from todays pic 1. To make up for it, to the right is a picture from summer 2009. Not that it changed much :)

PS: You might have noticed that I've added lava (or clay) granulate into the substrate. It is just in the upper layer and doesn't have any purpose. I simply think it looks good, more natural, which is of course just my subjective opinion. :)

fruits

I'm back and proud to present the 'Green Horn' future seed capsules. I'm not sure about the other plants I was trying to pollinate yet, but these two lesliei v. hornii have developed unmistakably big round and full fruits. It is my first success (third try) in this field so I'm very excited to see how it goes from now on. :)

(click on pictures for XXL)