Utricularia, section Orchidioides - info sharing & discussion

[BobZ]

Hey Ron, is the photo where you say ".... and last a quick pic of one of the two alpina's currently flowering" alpina or alpina x humboldtii as the file name suggests?
Ualpinaxhumboflower052612RS.jpg

[RL7836]

hey Ron, do you use a drip system on the vertical slabs or just hand water and allow them to sit in a shallow tray of water?

The slab in the pics is hanging on the wall of a 75 gal tank (pic is a few posts above). This slab gets watered with a sprayer when it looks dry (sometimes daily - sometimes every few days). The small treefern slab I mentioned in response to Amp is in another tank sitting in a small container of water (~0-0.5cm deep). I've been quite surprised at how well the treefern wicks the water. Also in that smaller tank is a cork slab covered with club moss with campby growing all through it. This doesn't wick as well (duh) but I mostly spray it when the other treefern gets dry. The new 'hanging basket' with a piece of james is also in this smaller tank hanging on one of the end walls. Hopefully, I will have another hanging basket innoculated with a piece of campby for the other endwall in the coming months. Basically, I'm still experimenting with different setups ...

Hey Ron, is the photo where you say ".... and last a quick pic of one of the two alpina's currently flowering" alpina or alpina x humboldtii as the file name suggests?
Ualpinaxhumboflower052612RS.jpg

LOL - Bob - you caught me. This plant was actually given to me as a U. alpina by U. humboldtii cross with the warning that the cross may not have 'taken' & should not be considered that hybrid until it was confirmed by flower. Well, the flower confirmed that the cross didn't take & the plant is full alpina. However, to keep the several clones of alpina in my collection separated, I kept this label for the flower pic.

[kulamauiman]

hmmm. The seedlings of U. nelumbifolia that I have grown seem to start out with reniform leaves. I can shoot some pics. Have always wondered in the "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" saying if that suggested that reniformis was a "trunk" species in the tree and nelumbifolia was a branch or leaf ...

[mobile]

@mobile: what is your campby mounted on? Roughly how thick is the moss layer? That's a different species of moss from what's on mine.

It's the mix that it came in and I think the substrate is coarse peat, bark, dried LFS and perlite. Only the top layer is moss and I'm not sure of the thickness.

[kulamauiman]

U. nelumbifolia seedlings with immature leaves.


I see similar leaves when i stress the adult plants out

[boxofrain]

U. nelumbifolia seedlings with immature leaves.


I see similar leaves when i stress the adult plants out

I see the same with my juvenile Nelumbifolia, it seems when the leaves achieve 1" or so in width, it fill's in the gap.
I'll try to get a set of progression pic's tomorrow. I could use the entertainment of learning this new pooter!

[RL7836]

Just a quick updated pic of U. jamesoniana. Two of the lower flowers are both open so I figured I'd take it down for a few pics and try to pollinate w/ U. alpina (I don't think it worked since none of my 5 alpina flowers had any real pollen - go figure). However, it seems that each time I take the slab down I find a new stalk (now up to six). The first one was pollinated with pollen from U. asplundii and it has been acting like it 'took' - we'll see in a few weeks. In addition, I used some of the U. jamesoniana pollen to fertilize a U. asplundii - which also looks like it 'took'. a U. nephrophylla x U. alpina attempt also looks promising. Ironically, a U. asplundii x U. alpina attempt failed miserably...

[Dexenthes]

Ron, living the Utricularia dream for all of us.

Congratulations!

[amphirion]

dont you find it annoying when the runners start popping OUT of the media? potential propagation wasted.... >.>

[RL7836]

Ron, living the Utricularia dream for all of us.

dont you find it annoying when the runners start popping OUT of the media? potential propagation wasted.... >.>

Not so much w/ james since they aren't really invasive. I do dislike how many the otherOrchidioides put out since they invade the other pots pretty quickly. I try to keep similar plants away from each other but it's tough. Overall, it's just part of growing utrics. Otoh, when I want more of the aerial roots for propagation (like with campby), there are none around.

Here's a pic of my 1st harvest of U. jamesoniana seed (u. james x U. asplundii) that I collected on the 4th. The seeds are sitting on a 1mm grid (actually a bit less than 1 mm) - very much like dust. Here's some infertile U. asplundii seed for comparison and some very different U. nephrophylla seed.


Potential good news on the U. james by alpina pollination attempt as both flowers quickly aborted their flowers after the cross. Now we get to wait & see what happens... Unlike with Sarrs or Neps, my attempts at crossing has shown these plants to be very idiosyncratic - many of the crosses fail & frequently at different points. Some ignore the pollen & pretend like it's not even there (ie: asplundii x alpina), some will produce seed that won't germinate (ie: asplundii (long lobe flower) x asplundii (short lobe flower)), some will self readily (ie: alpina (per buddy)), some will not self (ie: james (per buddy)), some will act like pollen was accepted & seeds are forming but have empty capsules (ie: alpina 'Pittier Moon' x asplundii iirc) and some will set seeds but much fewer than a normal pollination would produce (ie: nephro x nelumbifolia) & probably more permutations that my brain is not recalling - like the cross that produced U. 'Jitka' (quelchii x praetermissa) - produced viable seed & a healthy plant - but the plant is sterile (so far anyway).