PBS Forum

Now I have seen the video. Thank you very much, it was very informative. It looks very much like I did the pollination before, so I guess thats not the problem. Could it be that the day temprature is important during pollination? I guess that it would be well above 25 degrees C in south Africa while they are flowering and we keep around 18 C inside.
About the seeds, those orange tufts on black, often very hard seeds show up on other plants as well, Acacia mimosa for example. I guess the colour attracts birds so they can help spreading them. Similar tufts are often found on seeds that are spread by ants, but then the colors are more discreet.

Thank you!

So no stratification needed.
About the pollination: Yes, usually the pollen sticks to the feathers of hummingbirds, sunbirds, flowerpeckers and so on. But with the Strelitzias, the birds land on the stamen (the blue "bill" of the flower), when the stamen bends down by the weight from the bird, the stamen sides folds out and exposes the pollen, which sticks to the feet and then transfers to the stigma (the tip of the "bill")

Hi all!

I have a few plants of Strelitzia reginae. They are all from the same clone, except one who started to flower a few days ago. The original plant used to flower every winter around december to february (as I live in northern Sweden they are kept inside in big pots). I managed to get a few seeds some years ago but only one survived  and it is this plant that now is flowering. After splitting the big plant (three years ago) into four new plants they newer flowered again but they seem to do well and I expect that they will flower next year again.
So, my questions are:
 1. Is there a problem with self pollination of Strelitzia (I know it worked, but perhaps cross pollination works better?)
 2. Being bird pollinated I think they are using a rather unusual way, with pollen sticking to the feet instead of the
     feathers and I think I managed to imitate this rather well, but perhaps someone know a way to improve this?
 3. I had a very low germination rate from the first and only seeds I got, only one of 16 germinated. I think they 
     perhaps needed cold stratifiction, which I realized too late? So, any idea how tho get this work better are welcome.

All the best from Åke

Thank you all!

So, now i have some methods to work with. I liked the tips from Tony Avent, even if it feels a bit unpleasent to tear the flowers apart. I also realize that I have mostly male flowers, I guess that some switch over to female till next year if they are well fed?

The snow is disappearing fast, I can see about 10% of bare ground outside now.

/Åke

Thank you Uli!

Yes, they are kept indoors right now, but sometimes, when we have an early spring some of them are kept ouside for most of the growing season, but there seem to be low interest for them from the pollinators. This year we have a very late spring, we received 10 cm of extra snow the last days so i guess I will miss the time frame with flowering and suitable outdoor conditions. Otherwise my next plan was to attract insects by adding some honey into the inflorescence.
 

I have several Arisaema flovering while the snow is still deep outside. No pollinating insects anywhere. I trapped some flies and tossed them into the flowers and covered the entrance so they couldn't escape. My question is: are the Arisaemas self fertile or do I have to move the damned fly to the next flower? Or do anyone have a better idea about the pollination? It's actually not a big problem, they produce a lot of offsets, but it would be nice with some seeds. / Åke