A plant whose stems and leaves shimmer like shards of slivered glass creating sparkling prisms that have to be seen to be believed
Byblis liniflora is an annual that must be grown fresh from seed each year. The plants are very fragile and delicate with fragile root systems that must never be disturbed, therefore shipping plants is impossible. But seed is available as I have plenty.
The best soil mix is your standard peat/sand but a little heavier on the sand. They prefer to be grown in very warm to hot conditions, but many of my plants in the greenhouse are still doing really well even with cold nights. They rot very easily, so they must be allowed to dry out a bit between waterings.
Seed is best sown in the container where you wish to grow them. Once the seed germinates do not disturb them. They don't have very deep root systems so a maximum of 3 inches depth is more than sufficient.
Seed should be soaked for 1 to 2 hours in hot tap water prior to sowing and to help loosen the shiney black coating covering the seed. I find I get the best and fastest germination when bottom heat is applied. Seed are small and resemble poppey seed. Due to the weak root systems these plants posess they are best grown several per pot to help support each other.
Never, ever fertilize.; not even experimentally.
The flowers are beautful and resemble those of a undew. They are bright purple and are born one per scape. The blooms are self pollinating but I find I get greater seed production when I touch the flowers with a tuning fork. Resonating frequencies are not important so a q-tip would work just as well. The pollen is ripe only on warm days in full sun and only when the flowers have been fully open for several hours. Seed heads develop quickly and seed can be harvested and stored dry in the fridge.
One of the most remarkable traits of these beautiful plants is their sparkle in the sunlight. The hairs and glands covering the entire plant look as if they are made of crystal clear slivers of glass. Quite beautiful indeed. Plants and/or seed are almost never offered for sale as people tend to want to hold on to them. Like I said I have a good supply of fresh harvest in storage when you are ready to try.
It is most important that the soil is not too wet when germinating the seed and you definitely do not want to cover them. They must have a lot of air movement. In order to avoid or prevent damp off I would recommend sterilizing your soil in a microwave. Nearly all failures with this plant is due to fungal attack. But as I said this can be avoided.
Sound tempting yet???
I was tempted before you even posted.
Can this seed be sent out at this time of year safely? I might as well ask if you think liniflora is going to be the equivalent of me growing P. lusitanica? I am convinced that Ping hates me. I've killed mature plants of lusitanica, I've killed juveniles of lusitanica, and I've killed off lusitanica seedlings from not one... but two attempts at germinating them. I seem to have problems with annual CPs but I'm game to be knocked down and humbled... yet again... by a plant for the chance to have plants with "stems and leaves shimmer like shards of slivered glass creating sparkling prisms that have to be seen to be believed"!
You know, I have a new camera that I have yet to figure out how to work that should be able to capture the essence of a plant such as this. Now all I need to do is make sure the liniflora seed doesn't germinate and go to CP heaven on me and sit down and bond with the owner's manual to that new camera of mine that I had to have.
Lauren-
The seed can be sent safely with no problem. They need to be in cold storage for several months before sowing anyways. Unless you have a very warm area of very bright light to grow them in you should just store the seed in the fridge until spring. They dislike cold, damp conditions...which is why I believe so many people fail with this species....of course there's the sterile soil issue but I know you are very good about that.
I don't know why you have had so many problems with P. lusitanica. My advice would be to keep trying to germinate seed at different times of the year. They don't like really bright light. They also seem to like moderate to cool temperatures and do extremely well growing in milled sphagnum moss. I get my biggest plants by growing them in pure chopped LFS. Have you gone that route yet? I have tons of seed if you want to keep trying. Just say the word.
Nope, haven't gone the pure chopped LFS route but on the other hand, I am convinced lusitanica hates me because I have had very healthy adults shipped to me and I killed those too. I think all the lusitanica I get prefers CP heaven to what I offer.
One of my cats (a 22? year old Siamese) that is sort of senile got in the bathroom once and she went pee in the tray. I would have never believed it because we have 10 cat litter boxes in here but I walked in and there she was peeing in the tray. That was how the seeds met their demise that time. Another time, they germinated and they were doing really great. They were all almost the size of dimes and one day they were there... the next day they were gone. I think but not positive that a cat we have got in there and used them as a dietary supplement. We are very careful about the bathroom these days and the cats are not allowed in there. Another time... I wasn't so careful about nuking my medium and re-sowed seed into the same medium. I figured I was safe being as how the medium had only been sitting out for not longer than a month or so. Can we say sloppy and lazy? Those came up and promptly got attacked by some sort of a pathogen and went back to the earth. Who knows what happened all the other times when I had fresh medium that was nuked.
I can honestly say that there isn't a time of year to start them that I haven't tried. Guess the next route is the pure chopped LFS and I just recently ordered a bunch of that from your source so I will have the "private stock".
