For several months now, I have been testing Striped Panther's 'ploidy doidy'..lol! Finally the last flower in bloom has been pollinated tonight. I still have 1 scape each coming out from 2 bulbs. It was a very challenging but very educational experience....with a sweet scent. Let me share with you all Striped Panther...
The test...
8 bulbs of Striped Panther
as of 6/6/08:
13 scapes produced
91 flowers pollinated
72 failures
harvested seeds: SP X Night Star (very few)
SP X Amputo (3)
Night StarX SP (good)
Papilio IV X SP (good)
Pink Floyd X SP (good)
Lemon Lime X SP (good)
Soon, testing Striped Panther will be done.
It's time to move on to other trumpets. Live and learn...
maria: very interesting. I hope that you get some nice babies.
Hi Bsharf! yes, if I ever get to plant them...lol!
Next in line would be this new unnamed pink trumpet. I am still waiting on the grower's proper ID of it. "IF" they respond to my inquiry.
Very pretty trumpet...
Front view
Side view
All pollination attempts on the first bulb failed. Two more bulbs to test.
Picky...picky...trumpets!
Up close
Maria,
Wow! How did you manage to obtain so many?
Some day, I would like to have Striped Panther, but I seem to have my hands full right now with what I have.
I'm not sure that it is just trumpets that are sometimes difficult. Diploids in general seem to be 'different', not only in producing seeds but in dormancy periods, bloom cycles and care requirements
One year, I had a bumper crop of Johnsonii seedlings. This was after numerous years of trying to self and not succeeding. I have to admit that after a few failures, my heart was simply not into trying very hard.
Obviously, Johnsonii is easy to grow (for me). I noticed that the seeds stay viable longer as well.
If you can manage, I think it would be great to tried Johnsonii with Striped Panther, both ways!
Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a hardy Striped Panther?
Ann
This message was edited Jun 8, 2008 12:16 PM
Update: The rest of the pollination attempts failed. Oh well...
On the other hand, Striped Panther VII opened it's flowers yesterday. It's second scape for this season and has 7 flowers/scape. Lighter in coloration due to warmer weather but still a beauty to behold...
Hey Ann!
I went "Striped Panther Crazy" and ordered these bulbs for this test...lol! One bulb would have taken me foreeeveerrr to get results. A hardy SP would really be nice. Maybe someday...
Great tests, Maria!
From your results, it appears that SP is a diploid, and since I've convinced myself that Johnsonii is diploid, I would think you would be successful.
Once the weather gets warmer here (85 or above), I don't seem to have as much luck with seed pods and/or scapes for that matter. Who knows...
I hope you try again next year and let us know the results.
Ann
Thanks Ann! It would have been nicer if I got a few seedpods with viable seeds. Oh, well... Should I try and try until I succeed? Or should I just learn from this test and let things be as they are. :-)
I just finished pollinating another scape of SP. And another one is blooming right now. Maybe somewhere out there is the right pollen for it...
It's time to move on...
"Testing Donau"
Maria!
I have had reports from one other person in Switzerland who stated that he could not get pods to form on Striped Panther. However, he was able to use the pollen on others (primarily Tets) with positive results.
Unfortunately, I have had the same problem with a few. One of which is Sumatra... I was unable to get pods when it was blooming, protected, in my home the first year. Then, Walmart had them, so I was able to get two more of them. Again, pollination inside my home failed.
However! Pollination of one of two scapes in my patio produced 4 pods and viable seeds, but there may be more to that story. I will share that information with you later.
Last years bulb, in my greenhouse, finally decided to bloom and at first, it looked like the pods would take, but they failed.
Anyway, I suspect there are reasons other than ploidy that effect pollination of Sumatra. You see.... Sumatra sticks its tongue (stigma) out before the blossoms open. Some daylilies also do that, and it is FUN to see.
In my humble opinion, you should keep trying!
Ann
And I did kept on trying but to no avail... :-(
SP VIII 's second scape produced 6 flowers. All were pollinated and all failed with the exception of 1 using Raydio's Papilio pollen 6/26. It's too early to tell...
Striped Panther has a tendency to have "flower rot". It's flowers would not dry up like most flowers do. Sometimes it would get mushy and dark fluid would ooze out and drip from it. Some of the Jungle Stars also did this one time. I have a feeling this could be a possible cause of the failures. Once the flowers wilt, there is almost no air circulation inside that trumpet. SP's petals are thick in that part where it connects to the ovary. Fungus can settle in it before it dries out.
Here is a pic of an SP flower, wilting even before the stigma opens up. Notice the green thick part of the petals where I think rot starts. Dusting with Captan or Sulphur did not work in preventing the rot.
So for the last scape to test, I did an experiment. SP VI's second scape produced 6 flowers. All are pollinated and then petals are cut out to possibly give air circulation inside the flower. The filaments and styles are left untouched. Hmmmm..I should have cut of the filaments too. But anyway, I sprayed them with Mancozeb/Captan solution both inside and outside of the flower. And then dusted the cuts and whatever was left of the flower with sulphur powder. I cannot think of anything else to do with these rotting SP flowers. Maybe next time a systemic fungicide should be applied or maybe dipping all the flowers in a fungicide solution. Geeezzz, I'd hate to do that last one...lol!
Experiment on SP flowers...
Should I have cut back more of the petals?
Thanks. I always enjoy (and envy) your descriptions of your experiments!
Hey Andi...what have I got to lose? All pollination attempts have or are failing anyway. And the flowers are wilting and rotting. So might as well give this a try, right? If it succeeds, I'd be very thankful for it. If it still fails, the test has given me/us info that could be helpful in the future (I hope). Seek and you shall find. :-)
Ann... I was thinking about you this afternoon. It was almost 90s today. About that lesser pollination success during warmer temps. Have you considered that warmer temps. bring in fungus and causes flower wilt. As what's happening to my flowers now. The flowers would open up beautifully for 2-3 days. Then the petal edges would look like it's starting to dry/wilt. You would think that it's just the flower's normal wilting stage due to hot temp. But it's not for you can see that the flower has not reach that stage yet for the style has not even curved upward, still very straight. Eventually the whole flower( petals, style and stigma) will wilt and become mushy before it dries out. Once the fungus settles in the flowers, the pollination would fail. Pink Impression II just lost all its flowers to wilt. And of course all the pollination failed.
Gilmar was starting to have "The Wilt". I did the very same thing I did with SP. As I was cutting off the petals of the already pollinated flowers, I noticed this grayish color in it like molds already. :-( I still have a few clean unpollinated stigmas. They will be pollinated tonight if they are ready.
Gilmar a few days ago...
Gilmar today...
Yes I am that amaryllis crazy...lol!
Oh...I just got to share this.
Carnival was also "undressed"! LOL! My seven year old daughter saw it and said, "Mommy, THAT's a weird looking flower!!!"
I almost told her, "THAT's a new cybister variety!" LOL!
Have a good gardening week ahead!
Yup! Striped Panther sure is a diploid. Tested seeds of Papilio X Striped Panther resulted in 9 out of 10 germinating so far.
Nice...very nice...
