Yesterday I finally came around to sorting out my seed boxes and sowing some Lithops. I've sown 22 different kinds! Some of them have been waiting for 5 years so I'm not sure what to expect of the germination rate but we'll see. I read they can stay viable for 30 years.
I've also harvested some seed capsules and have more seeds to offer for free now.
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.
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
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.
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.
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!
