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P. parviflora journal.

  • #21
It's an open porch, second floor, but I'm sure I can rig something up to give them a little shelter. This is Western NY, though, and getting into the 90's requires a bit of effort. Our average daily high at the peak of summer is 81 F, so most of our summer is between the mid-70's and mid-80's.

Now it's 3 Ibicellas and 3 Proboscidea... and zero Martynia's!

What confuses me about Larry's advice is that he recommends lots of water. Aren't they desert Southwest plants? What fertilizer does one use? Why the ground? Insulation?
 
  • #22
What confuses me about Larry's advice is that he recommends lots of water. Aren't they desert Southwest plants?
Yes, but I am guessing they can take lots of water easily. I water mine daily without them showing any signs of stress.

What fertilizer does one use?
I don't know if there is a set recommended dose. I am using a mix of compost, humus, and this slow release fertilizer (19-6-12).

Why the ground? Insulation?
Because Proboscidea tends to be "ground hugging", gets rather large, and has a large root system.(see here) Your planter/pot will have to be quite large and deep to accommodate an adult plant comfortably.
 
  • #23
I don't mind them spreading on the porch but maybe it's their roots systems that need to spread downward. I'll have to evaluate them in a few weeks and replant in the ground. How long do ya reckon they need before repotting?
 
  • #24
Here are a couple pictures, from 6/8:

Phoyos075.jpg


Phoyos076.jpg
 
  • #25
Very nice, Jim! :)

Some more entries:
6/7/08- The flower bud on #2 has gotten much bigger. I am expecting it to bloom anytime now. It's times like these that I really wish I had a camera. The sepals have opened and revealed the actual flower bud, which has elongated to the point where it resembles an almost perfect rectangular prism. It is pale yellow to cream in color. The flower bud has five little projections (almost like little horns) on the end. There are three on the top and two on the bottom. Keep in mind that it is still closed. The sepals are not very distinct; they also have the fuzzy hairs all over. I drew this to substitute for a picture:
Pparviflora001.jpg


Plant #2 is also growing a total of four new leaves now. It seems to have branched off and is growing a set of two on one side and another set of two on the other side of the stem. Surprisingly, #1 seems to be lagging behind a bit. #1 is one day older than #2, but its flower bud is still very small and is behind on leaf production when compared to #2. I took some quick measurements noting how tall each plant is (from the ground to the tallest leaf): #1= 9.5cm, #2= 11cm, #4= 7.8cm, and #5= 4cm.

Lastly, I also had two more plants germinate today. Yay! These will be #6 and #7. Both of these are from the second batch of seed that were sown on 5/21/08.

Germination Tally: 7
Plants That Have Died: 1
Plants Alive: 6


6/8/08- I woke up to find the the flower on plant #2 has finally opened. Beautiful! It reminds me of a snap dragon flower. It's pink and has a yellow nectar "trail" leading to the inside of the flower. I had trouble identifying the stigma and the anthers. I have not read much information regarding pollination, so I didn't know what to really do. Is it self fertile? Does it self seed? Any help on this matter is appreciated.
I decided to use a soft paintbrush and attempt to hand pollinate the flower to itself. All I did was insert the brush and wiggle it around the anthers and stigma. I did see some pollen grains fall off, but still could not ID the stigma, so I kept wiggling it around for about one minute. The stigma is supposed to move when stimulated, but again I did not see it. I wonder how long the flower will last?

6/9/08- (Morning) The two new seedlings (6 and 7) took yesterday's heat pretty well. It got up to 94F. Their embryonic leaves are now open and soaking up the morning sun.
The flower on #2 is still open.

(Evening) I came home from work and found that the flower on #2 fell off. It was right in front of the plant and it didn't seem to be cut off or pulled off, so I am assuming the flower dropped it on its own. The stigma and sepals were left connected to the flower's stem. The flower had four full anthers + stamens and one that was cut off (maybe an additional one was cut off as well, but this one was hard to tell as the cut was very near the base).

Thanks for reading.
 
  • #26
6/11/08- Well, I learned an important lesson today... I should stop touching the plants so much. Unfortunately, as I was touching the leaves on plant #2, its flower bud + stem fell off (this is the one that had flowered days before). Maybe it was going to fall off anyway or maybe not, but I guess I shouldn't have been poking around where I don't belong. It's not a big loss as it was the first flower and more are on the way.

6/13/08- I went to the store and purchased some more humus as I will be moving plants #6 and #7 into the ground today. I made some holes in the devil's claw patch and first inserted #6. The removal from its pot went nicely as the plant + soil "plug" slipped out nicely and did not fall apart. Then it was #7's turn. This one didn't go so nicely as the soil "plug" came apart as I was inserting it into the hole. In fact, it was the worst one yet. The entire thing fell apart and the plant and its roots where stripped of all soil. I quickly placed it into the ground.

I added some more top layering of humus to the patch and watered throughly. Lastly, I inserted popsicle stick markers next to these two plants. Again, the markers have the plant number and the germination date written in pencil. I should also note here that I am watering only during the late afternoon (right before sundown). The patch stays wet overnight until midday the following morning when the sun drys it all up.

6/15/08- It doesn't seem like plant #7 took the moving into the ground so well. The embryonic leaves are starting to look pretty bad and the plant itself looks nearly wilted. I can see the first pair of true leaves coming up on this one. They are green and healthy, so I still have some hope for it.

On the other hand, #6 took the moving very well. It settled right in with it's older siblings. :) As of now, I have run out of room for any further plants in my patch. As I mentioned before, I am leaving 2 to 3 feet of space between them so they have plenty of room to spread as adults. The patch now houses all of my plants, which is a total of six. The younger ones are in the front and the older ones in the back.

There isn't much to report on the older plants. #1 and #2 are getting big now and are growing multiple and bigger leaves at once. I can still see buds on #1, but it has yet to flower. Only #2 has flowered. #5 (remember this is the weird one, having the three embryonic leaves instead of two) is still small only having one set of true leaves.

An interesting observation to note here is that #1 and #2 are now sticky! Yes, just like a sundew. I cannot actually see the "dew"on the plants, but I can sure feel it! Along with the dewiness, they are also now quite hairy and fuzzy as well. I have not seen them catch any insects, though.

No further germination from the seed batches have been observed.
 
  • #27
Our recent rainstorms bent the 2 youngest Ibicellas at the stems and killed them.
 
  • #28
Our recent rainstorms bent the 2 youngest Ibicellas at the stems and killed them.
Sad to hear about that Jim. Hope the others are doing well.



6/17/08- I had lots of seed germinate today! When I got home in the afternoon I saw that three seedlings had popped up. All were from the second batch. These are #8, 9, and 10. After watering, I went to the patch and noticed that a seedling germinated there too! It was right next to plant #6, so I am sure that it hitchhiked in #6's pot, which was one of the big ones hosing three seeds. So this new seedling is #11.

The small plantlet was too close to #6, so I dug it up and moved it away from #6. I know, I know, I mentioned that the patch could not host anymore plants, but I moved #11 about 1 foot from #6. I hope this will suffice.

I have no idea where I will move #8, 9, and 10 now. I definitely cannot move them to the patch as it is filled to capacity. I also don't want to use large pots. I guess I'll have to find an appropriate location elsewhere in my garden, but then I'll have to fence it off just like the patch in order to keep my little dog away from them. I'll also have to prepare the soil if I choose a ground location, as the soil is mostly clay and sand, not to mention the poor fertility. Hmmm... is there such thing as having too many devil's claw plants? :)

6/18/08- I found plant #7 dead this morning. I guess it didn't take the stress of the moving so well.

Germination Tally: 11
Plants That Have Died: 2
Plants Alive: 9

EDIT: Here is my 10 day weather forecast for anyone that is interested in temps:
 
  • #29
6/22/08- I moved plants 8 and 9 into the ground where #7 used to be. Since 8 and 9 germinated in the same pot, I decided to move them into the ground together. Yes there is like only 3 inches between them, but I will decide what to do about this once they begin to get bigger.

Today I had two more plants germinate: #12 and #13. Strange as it is, both of these are quite deformed. Each germinated in a small seedling pot. #12 has odd shaped embryonic leaves. It seemed to have trouble shedding that endo-seed coat and that the coat is now stuck on both leaves. Also, the leaves have shades of green and yellow. #13 germinated okay, but only has one embryonic leaf.

6/24/08- First of all I have to say that the heat wave is over. All of the plants survived a max temperature of 106F (according to my garden’s thermometer) in full sun. Yes, heat tolerant indeed.

Another surprise today! Recall that plant #11 was a surprise germination. I don’t think I elaborated much on that or I was a bit ambiguous, so I’ll reiterate about the surprise germination here. Some of you may remember that since I began this “project”, I used different sized pots especially for germinating the seed. Some were small and the others were quite large. The larger pots had enough space and allowed me to sow three seeds in each of these pots. Well plant #6 germinated in one of these pots that contained two additional seeds at the time it germinated. When I moved #6 into the ground, in went the two additional seeds with it. Later, plant #11 germinated in the ground right next to #6, obviously being one of those two “forgotten” seed. I decided to up root #11 and move it a couple of inches away from #6.

Well, today I had that third (last) forgotten seed germinate right next to #6. This one will be plant #14. However I did not move this one away from #6. I just left it there. Now, there are several plants that are semi-clumped together towards the front of the patch. So much for my 2 to 3 feet apart rule… :rolleyes: I guess I will grow them and if it gets too crowded, I’ll just pull the small, weaker looking ones out. Yes, yes let us all play natural selection. :devil:

No more flowers have appeared yet, but I am desperately waiting for them…

6/26/08- I know keeping up with all the plant numbers is getting a bit hectic, so I made this table and illustration to provide all the details and locations. Enjoy and thanks for reading! :)

Pparvifloratable62608.jpg


Not drawn to scale:
PatchIllustrarion.jpg
 
  • #30
Wow. That's some good tracking data. I'm impressed. Congratulations on your success.

xvart.
 
  • #31
Joel, you oughta work in a lab!

For the record, two Ibicellas died and two Proboscidaes sprang up. Still can't get a Martynia to do anything! I must needs procure a trowel for transplanting.
 
  • #32
Thanks for the comments, guys.

Jim, your plants should be on a roll with leaf production now. Hopefully the temperatures in the higher latitudes have gotten warmer. As always, good luck! :)
 
  • #33
We're still in the 70's & 80's for the next 2 weeks but I'm sure a Bermuda high is on the way with it's 85-90 degree days.
 
  • #34
6/30/08- Plants 1, 2, and 4 now stink! Yes, they now have a distinct smell to them… it's not too bad and not too strong, though. I also reported that these plants were sticky a couple entries ago. Well, now they are really sticky. The "dew" is now almost like sap and is now difficult to remove from my fingers with just water.

Over the last couple of days I have noticed that the larger plants, mainly 1, 2, and 4 have developed some sort of damage. First, I noticed a couple of brown spots develop on a number of leaves. This was about seven days ago. Over the last couple of days though, I began to notice that the brown spots became holes. This was and still is very prominent on the younger emerging leaves. At first, I thought it might have been sunburn or just some natural occurrence, but today I found the perpetrator: Caterpillars!

I do not know the species of caterpillar (moth/butterfly), but I do know that these like to hang out and munch on the grapevine and numerous flower plants that are located around my house. Luckily, the damage to the devil's claws is not significant. So far, I have found only two caterpillars on the devil's claws. The damage is mostly scattered and very minimal, the holes being only around a millimeter in diameter. Based on how big the holes are, I am guessing that the caterpillars find the sticky, hairy leaves unfavorable.

Now the question is how do I fight back? Even though the plants have suffered very little, I am still going to take action to prevent further pests. The easiest and most effective way I can think of is to go chemical on their little behinds. The thing is, I have not read anything on how devil's claws take insecticide. So, I will have to test and see how they do. Here is my plan… I have a systemic insecticide from Ortho that I use on my CPs. It is effective at killing chewers and suckers. Here is a link to it for those of you that may want the specs. The product is called Ortho's Systemic Insect Killer. It is 8% Acephate and recommends 3 tablespoons of the concentrate per gallon of water for "other insects" such as caterpillars.

Since I don't know how the plant will react to this treatment, I will have to run a test application first before treating all the plants. I will choose an affected leaf on one of the older plants and treat only that leaf. To mark it I will tie a bright yellow string around its petiole. Then, I will spray the insecticide on the leaf surface and below the leaf as well. I will apply the treatment once the patch is no longer receiving full sun, which is about 7PM today. After this treatment, I will wait a couple of days to see how that individual leaf responds to the insecticide. I will probably wait for 3 to 5 days. If all goes well, then I will proceed to treat plants 1, 2, and 4. I'll report back here at that time.

Let the games begin. :)

7/1/08- (Morning) Well, I changed my experiment just a tad bit once I got home yesterday. Instead of applying the treatment to one leaf I decided to treat three leaves. Two of them were caterpillar-damaged leaves from plant #4 while the other was undamaged (healthy) from plant #1. I applied the insecticide liberally on the top and underneath the leaves. This morning they seemed fine. :bigthumpup:

More good news rolling in... I am expecting plant #1 to flower soon; either today or early tomorrow. It has finally developed the signature flower stalk most of these plant have. Once mature, the plant's main stem will form a Y shape. At the point where the main stem meets the two secondary stems (in the center of the Y), a tiny cluster of premature flower buds form. Once the plant is old enough a thin stem (flower stalk) will grow from this point, taking up with it the tiny flower buds. From here flowers will begin to grow and eventually bloom. Plant #1 is experiencing what is described here. The stalk is already a couple of inches tall and one flower from the cluster is on the verge of blooming.

7/2/08- Two days have passed since I applied the insecticide. The three leaves showed no signs of harm. Today, I found a handful of caterpillars on the large plants. As of today plant #4 has suffered the most, but the overall damaged is still minimal.

Because of the additional caterpillars and lack of damage signs from the insecticide, I decided to go ahead with the full application ahead of schedule. Again, once the patch was no longer receiving full sun (~7PM) I filled up my spray bottle and got to it. Plants 1, 2, 4, and 5 were fully treated. The other plants were not treated because they are still too small and have not shown any signs of damage. I tried to spray the foliage thoroughly, but avoided the flower clusters in order to prevent damage to them.

7/3/08- (Morning) The treated plants still seem fine after yesterday's full application. This morning, I went to check on them briefly and saw them leaning over towards the morning sun as usual. I really hope the systemic will work well. As a precaution, I will be doing a repeat application to all of the plants (including the smaller ones) later in the month.

We have finally entered July and are in the midst of summer. July is known for bringing temperatures that get to 100F+ day after day after day here in the high desert. This month will allow me to test the heat tolerance of the plants on a continuous, long-term level. Hopefully, they can tough it out. :water:

If I see any reaction to the treatment, I will post it here in this post. Otherwise if all goes well, I will post another entry sometime later as a new post. Thanks for reading and have a great 4th of July! :usa2:
 
  • #35
this is great tracking info lol....and alot of help....
my seeds just started to germinate....i have a total of 6 lousianica or howeer you spell it lol and 2 parvifloras....
 
  • #36
7/3/08- (Afternoon) Plant #1 has finally flowered. I went ahead and hand pollinated #1's flower. I crossed it to itself. This time, I used a Q-tip to pollinate. I used the same method as before: insert and wiggle.

7/5/08- The older plants (1,2, and 4) are growing lots of flower buds. It's quite exciting. The flower from #1 fell off sometime during the day.

7/6/08- #4's first flower is now in full bloom. In addition, #1 now has a second bloom. This gave me the first opportunity to cross-pollinate the two plants. I used a Q-tip again. Since the patch is running out of open room, especially in the back where the older plants are located, I found it difficult to pollinate them. I had to kneel awkwardly in order to prevent my clothing from coming in contact with the sticky leaves.

In the end, I go it done. The process was fairly simple. I just inserted the Q-tip into the flower, avoiding the stigma at the top. Once inside, I wiggled the Q-tip around the anthers, getting pollen onto the cotton. I took it out, again avoiding the stigma, then went straight to the flower on #4. I then rubbed the Q-tip on the stigma. I repeated the same thing except took the pollen from plant #4 and applied it to #1's flower.

I can see that from now on, it will be too much of a hassle (and simply repetitive) to post whenever a plant gets a new bloom and describe what I decided to do with it. So I will only mention general observations and post the date when a plant gets its first flower. As far as pollination goes, you can assume that I will cross two plants whenever possible, and if only one flower is open at the time, I will self it. We really don't have many bees out here, so doing it by hand will be the way to go.

I also want to see if the flowers will self-seed. Sometime in the near future, I will test this and describe the test and results in a future post.

7/7/08- I know I don't have much evidence to support this, but I am going to go ahead and say that the average length of time a flower stays in bloom is about 2 days (based on what I have observed thus far). I should note here that the sepal cluster and stigma remain on the flower stalk after the flower falls off.

Excellent news today! I think I may have my first fruit coming in! The flower from plant #1 (from entry 7/3/08) fell off shortly after I pollinated it (recall that I "selfed" it). Today, I noticed the stigma that remained there looked a bit strange. It seemed to have lengthened and gotten thicker and green towards the end that is attached to the plant. The stigma-end is still white (now turning black and dieing off) and seems to be attached to the emerging fruit. I may be mistaken, so I'll update on what happens. For the meantime, here is a sketch of how it looks like:


Pparviflorafruit.jpg



I am also going to go ahead and say that the insecticide treatment was successful. I have not noticed any additional caterpillars on the plants. Of course as the leaves grow, the tiny holes stretch and it makes it seem that there is more damage, but this is not the case. The only possible reaction that I noticed was that a couple of the lower, older leaves on the plants turned brown and died. This may not be a direct reaction to the insecticide, though. I will apply another treatment on 7/13/08.

Another thing I want to mention is that plant #10 is still in its original pot. I think this is the longest I have gone without moving a seedling from the pot to the ground. It has been 21 days since it germinated and it is still growing well in its pot. Currently, it just finished growing its second pair of true leaves. Its roots must be jamming the base of the pot, but I think I will keep it in there for now.

In other news (I swear I'm running out of transitions here), I pulled out plant #14 from the patch. It was starting to bend and stretch as plant #6's leaves were blocking out the sun to it. #14 was one of the surprise germinations from a couple of entries ago. As #6 grew, it blocked #14 and thus, 14 became leggy. In the end it was like a parasitic twin to #6 sucking up its water and nutrients, so today I pulled it out of the ground like a weed. It came out with a couple of roots intact. My younger brother wanted it, so I gave it to him. He planted it in one of his planters.

Now I want to mention the rest of the seed that have not germinated (from both batches). Up to today, I have kept all of them in full sun and have watered them daily. Today, I decided to dig them up to see what was going on with them. Most of them were dead. The outer seed coats were still present. However, the endosperm and embryo had turned black and mushy on most of them. Only two seeds that seemed healthy remained. I kept those in their pots and threw the rest out. So much for that…

Lastly, I want to mention the weather again. Hot hot hot! Here is the forecast for my area for the next couple of days.
7/7 Monday: 102F
7/8 Tuesday: 110F
7/9 Wednesday: 108F
7/10 Thursday: 108F
7/11 Friday: 99F

Again, thanks for reading. I want to get some pictures up soon. …keeping my fingers crossed for that first fruit. :)

-Joel
 
  • #37
7/9/08- The heat is on full blast right now. My yard thermometer read 111F when I placed it in the sun today. Despite this heat, all of the devil's claws don't seem to mind at all.

I can confirm now with 100% certainty that the possible fruit I saw a couple of days ago on plant #1 is in fact its first claw! It is developing pretty fast. The style and stigma are now very dry looking and shriveled. More flowers are popping up on the big three, so hopefully more claws will appear soon.

I updated the data table, added additional data columns, and rearranged it a bit:

PparvifloraTable9708.jpg



As you can see the big three (plants 1, 2, and 4) are nearing 3 feet in diameter!:0o:

EDIT: Hmmm the picture came out smaller than the original, so here is the bigger version:
 
  • #38
In contrast, I have 7 seedlings and the biggest one tops out at about half a foot! Is there enough time in the growing season for mine to flower and do the claw thing? Do they need to be transplanted to the ground for insulation or root space?
 
  • #39
In contrast, I have 7 seedlings and the biggest one tops out at about half a foot! Is there enough time in the growing season for mine to flower and do the claw thing? Do they need to be transplanted to the ground for insulation or root space?

I wouldn't worry Jim. They will accelerate in growth once the main stem splits in two (for the Parviflora). Personally, I would transplant them to the ground or a very large, deep pot if I had the chance. These things get very top heavy and limiting their root system would leave them at risk to topple under their own weight once mature. I don't think insulation at this point is an issue, although it might play a role once colder weather sets in...

I am going to keep one of my plants (#10) in a pot and see what happens in terms of growth, flowers, fruit, etc. I am guess that if kept in a small pot, the plant itself will remain small (or smaller than average).

Good luck!
 
  • #40
well i had almost all of my plants die so i put them outside under a shade cloth and watered them and a few came back.....and actually they look better in the full sun then they did inside
 
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