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lance

Class 5 Nepenthes hoarder
Hello everyone.

Today is a very exciting day in my HL Nepenthes chamber to say the least. My Nepenthes spathulata's flower stalk has finally been harvested after 6 months of patience where I waited and hoped that I would get a few fat live seeds from the only two pods that survived from the pollination of a male Nepenthes X Predator (truncata X hamata). The Nepenthes X predator pollen was obtained from Peter D Amato who happened to have some from his clone which just flowered. I'm very excited to see how this cross develops!! As far as I know this is the second created complex hybrid with N. X predator, the first one being with a ventricosa. Although both male and female are some what similar, the fact that 11 out of 300 or so seeds were successfully created means that these seeds could be a very very special combination between a almost sterile male (as witnessed by other growers who have flowered N. X predator)! Two out of 4 seed pods revealed 11 fat and healthy seeds while the other two seed pods failed. The two lucky seed pods that carried on the genes were only able to make about 10-15% of their yield which should have been 60-120 seeds!! These 11 lucky seeds were able to mix their genes in a way that the other seeds couldn't do while being created! This is what makes growing Nepenthes from seed so exciting! You never know what your gonna get! Anyways, enough talk for now. Time to get to the pics .


<a href="http://s1222.photobucket.com/albums/dd495/Lance_Plater/?action=view&current=DSC_0386.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1222.photobucket.com/albums/dd495/Lance_Plater/DSC_0386.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

Fatties!! The reason the seeds are so big is because the female must have realized that only these 11 seeds could be allowed energy so the genes would mix and the overies would grow, thus abandoning all the others and honing in on the 5-6 seeds each pod contained that had a nice chromosome match. The reason the seeds don't have much of a winged projection on the ends is because they were just so tight inside the ovary that there was no room for them to go but up LOL. If you look closely the projections twisted in a pattern to conserve space while the ovaries grew to their best size. Some grew backwards which is why they looked like they've been snipped. I tried stretching one of the seeds out but I decided not to go any further... if I broke the projection's tip it would be very bad for the ovary protected inside the "rice bag" so to speak. The seeds were left out an hour to harden up a bit before I prepared the media right next to the female. The projections were still moist and bendy as they had built up tiny pockets of water while winding around in the seed pod.


<a href="http://s1222.photobucket.com/albums/dd495/Lance_Plater/?action=view&current=DSC_0390.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1222.photobucket.com/albums/dd495/Lance_Plater/DSC_0390.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

LOL... the most clever seed of the batch, bending its projections back and forward again to still have a little wind flotation as if in the wild. Most of them just cork screwed their wings to make room.

Anyways thats about it. The seeds have been sowed next to their mother and should germinate in good numbers since viability doesn't really matter much with these 6 hour old seeds :|. Ill be posting updates to these lil' guys as they hopefully germinate and grow! Sorry if I got carried away with talking, I'm just very excited for this cool combination of big truncata, toothy hamata, and the vigorous N. Spathulata!!

Thank you so much tony for the female spathulata!! It means a lot!!
 
Congratulations!
 
Dang, that's seriously impressive stuff. Nice job lance, can't wait to see what the plants will look like :D
 
Very cool! This is my ultimate goal as a Nepenthes grower
 
And nearly 2 1/2 months later, I have noticed germination!


<a href="http://s1222.photobucket.com/albums/dd495/Lance_Plater/?action=view&current=FotoFlexer_Photo.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1222.photobucket.com/albums/dd495/Lance_Plater/FotoFlexer_Photo.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

The picture was a pain to capture, but if you look directly in the middle you can see a dark brown figure (the seed) with greenery projecting out of it's end. So far one seed out of 4 visible seeds has germinated. It feels so good to know that nearly 4 years of trial and error with creating hybrids has finally payed off! Hopefully the N. tenuis X (X predator) seeds will show the same results ;).
 
OMG, what are you gonna name the hybrid? I want to call my first hybrid N. x 'Regina George' or N. x 'Superdooperpookyfluffysnigglewigglehuggyfluffycutekawaiiunicornfluffyfluffycutiepiewubbywubbywubbsters'... Ridiculous names. :p
 
very cool.....you are living one of my long term goals. A well deserved congrats is in order. Keep up the good work!
 
0mg Congratulations!
 
Thanks y'all!

OMG, what are you gonna name the hybrid? I want to call my first hybrid N. x 'Regina George' or N. x 'Superdooperpookyfluffysnigglewigglehuggyfluffycutekawaiiunicornfluffyfluffycutiepiewubbywubbywubbsters'... Ridiculous names. :p

Haha! It's hard to say what I shall name it but for me it will depend on what the cross looks like once it's older which will be the final conclusion for it's name. It was my plan to create a "cheap and available version" of N. X predator (since N. spathulata resembles N. X predator) but ironically there were very few seeds made so that won't work. Hopefully the complex cross will produce some varying offspring.
 
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