This is especially for jimscott. In a recent post I read of his continued difficulties and I thought that perhaps a very careful description of the process might help.
The ovary is like a little bead that sits on top of the flower stalk, it becomes visible if you carefully tear-off the corolla (petals), as long as you don't damage any other part of the flower. Attached to the top of the ovary is the style, and attached to the top of the style is the stigma, as a bifurcated flap, usually with a smaller segment of the flap rising above the lower flap, which is larger. The upper side of this flap is the stigma surface (it is the only place where you can place pollen that can produce fertilization).
One critical point is to be extremely careful not to put any unnecessary stress on the upper stigma surface or its very fragile and tenuous connection to the style. The filaments of the two stamen are attached at the base of the ovary, on the side that is usually closer to the ground, when the flower is in its usual position at anthesis. These filaments sweep up and forward, so they position the anthers directly beneath the stigma flap and on top of the ovary. The filaments are shaped similar to some animal horns. The anthers, if the conditions are right, will mature and release pollen at anthesis. Usually, if pollen is released from the anthers, it will be viable (though not always). Sometimes the anthers may need to be carefully detached from the flower and the pollen dissected from the anthers before it can be used. Some clones/species rarely, if ever, produce any pollen, or any viable pollen. Some rarely release their pollen in a normal manner.
**** The first time I succeeded in producing viable seed of Mexican
Pinguicula, was with the cultivar -
Pinguicula 'Sethos'. I first propagated a dozen or more of the cultivar, grew them to flowering size, and began attempting to self-pollinate (self-fertilize) the flowers produced. Most often the flowers produced no pollen. Sometimes a fertilization produced an empty ovary. Sometimes it would produce seed that would not germinate. Sometimes seed that were non-viable (obvious because the testa would be empty). After pollinating dozens of flowers, over two or three years, finally the seed from one of my pollinations, germinated. I was in shock. Most of the seedlings grew quickly to a mature, flowering size. Segregation was obvious in this F2 generation.
Here is a pic of some of these seedlings in a community tray -->
****
My technique:
I use flat style, wooden toothpicks that I have darkened the flat ends of by marking them heavily with a black indelible marker (and then let them dry thoroughly). I grasp the upper part of the corolla and carefully tear off the lower portion of the corolla, including the spur. While still holding the upper corolla, I use the toothpick to carefully lift the stigma flap to view the anthers and see if their is any pollen that has been released there. If there is, I very carefully pick some up on the end of the darkened toothpick. If this is the flower I want to self-pollinate, I simply deposit the pollen
very gently onto the upper stigma surface, near where the stigma attaches to the style. It is extremely easy to critically damage the stigma and style during this process. If they are damaged, fertilization will not happen. If you are making a hybrid, you simply need to modify your technique, so you use two different toothpicks, using one toothpick for each pollen donor, and making sure to only place the pollen of the donor plants onto the upper stigma surface of the potential mother plants.