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D. communis


jimscott

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...

I've been growing this species for about 30 years and its only in the last few years it has been flowering reliably for me. It gets natural light levels in my greenhouse kept frost free, so reduced photoperiod and cool in winter. What has made the difference is really deep pots, I grow them with Cephalotus in very tall rose pots.

Stephan:

After reading your post on the ICPS boards I repotted some of my D. hamiltonii into a deep pot. One of them flowered just last month. One of the plants in the 4 x 4 inch pots flowered last year. None of those flowered this year but it turns out they were infested with mealybugs.

The colony in the deep pot does not produce offshoots in great numbers. It is my observation that when the roots are horizontal they start to produce offshoots. If the pot is deep enough the roots probably reach their optimal length without go horizontal by hitting the bottom of the pot. Possibly the energy that would go into growing flowers goes to production of offshoots.

I believe deep pots make a difference.

Other than that I had been growing this species for 4-5 years prior to it flowering. I was growing indoors but moved it outdoors so it would experience colder temperatures during the winter.

I have recently acquired some plants with slightly more location data other than "WA, Australia" that my plants were labeled with. I'm hoping this may be a different clone from my previous plants and if I can get them both to flower at the same time I will be able to get seeds.

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  • 7 months later...

Third year in a row I've started to get flowers from D. hamiltonii. This one started early as the others were end of May through June. I acquired these particular plants last summer and are hoping they may be a different clone from the previous plants I have. They were labled "Esperance WA" where as the others were merely WA. If I can get them to flower at the same time maybe I can get seeds.

IMGP7117_zps08669cd2.jpg

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  • 1 month later...

Really nice flowers.

I thought D. hamiltonii is self-fertile if pollinated by hand or isn´t it the case.

 

I tried every trick in the book hand pollinating these two years running (three if you count this year but too soon for results). I tried pollen of other and previous flowers and pollinating multiple times over the course of several hours. I've never heard of anybody obtaining seeds from this species from self-pollination.

 

There was a paper several years ago that looked at self-compatible Australian Drosera but it appears that D. hamiltonii was not one of the species examined. I do not have a copy of the paper. It wasn't available online the last time I looked for it.

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Never read this article, hopefully it will work with your other plants if you cross-pollinate them, good luck.

The pollen of south american Drosera is only viable for a short time if stored in a fridge, perhaps longer if stored in the freezer.

 

@Killian, your plants are definitely not D. communis, probably a D. spatulata form.

 

Best regards,

Daniel

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  • 2 weeks later...

Have you tried mixing the pollen of another species with the pollen of D. h.?  Sometimes the presence of a different pollen can induce the stigma to accept its own pollen...

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That's a new one to me. I'll try it the next time around in a couple days. Plenty of other stuff flowering too.

 

It depends on what the exact mechanism the plant employs to prevent selfing.  Some, like Dioneae just use timing, but if D. hamiltonii has developed a resistance to being selfed, then it probably has some kind of block on the stigma for same pollen.  Adding different pollen will sometimes over come this "selfing block".

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I tried to take dichogomy into account by also using pollen from previous flowers and pollinating throughout the cycle the flowers were open. They remain open 4-6 hours.

 

Another pair of flowers are opening even as we speak. I have some Dionaea pollen I can mix in. That would lessen the chance of hybrids than using say D. capensis or D. aliciae which are in flower at the same time.

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I doubt you can get hybrids, there shouldn't be any problem with using more similar pollen.  I would think several pollen might need to be tried, before rulling it out as possible...  Even if you did get some hybrids, that would be pretty awesome as no one has yet.

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I have two unopened flower remaining on clone A and between two flower stalks on two clone B plants maybe a dozen unopened flowers.

 

I'll finish off trying to cross pollinate the D. hamiltonii with the remaining two flowers and then try hybridizing the rest of the flowers on clone B.

 

It doesn't look very promising as the 2n from D. hamiltonii is 28. D indica, D. gigantea, D. pygmaea and D. adelaered have 2n=28. D. petiolaris has a 2n=14. I either don't have any of these species or they are not any where near flowering.

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  • 1 month later...

And now (ta-daaa) - D. hamiltonii seed:
IMGP8437_1_zps0206490c.jpg

Very few seed, and only from the flowers that were pollinated from the other plants. I may have waited too long to collect the seed but I've noticed that many of species that produce many offshoots seem to produce small seed amounts.

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This is a start, and goes to shows that while there is a self pollination block, it can still be overcome. 

 

Part of it is auxin flow.  The seeds developing in the ovaries continue sending an auxin signal giving the ovaries apical dominance, while plants that have not been pollinated can instead put their energy into making more stems and offshoots.

Edited by Dave Evans
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