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U. tricolor

My U. tricolor has begun to send up multiple scapes, some of which have flower buds starting. This is the first time this plant has threatened to flower for me.
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Nice work. Any ideas on what triggered this miracle?
 
I did it 20 years ago, and I am still bragging about it Bob! Now just hope the scapes don't abort. Congratulations, and please let us know what conditions you have that allows for this mind bending event - it wasn't human sacrifice was it? I figure I've tried everything but that!
 
Here is what happened, but DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!
Last fall, this U. tricolor had been growing vigorously and completely filled a 6-inch pot, forming a large mound that spilled over the sides of the pot. Then in December it became infested with the worse case of thrips that I have ever seen. The pot was in an area where we do not allow the use of pesticides so we tried to control the thrips with parasitic wasps. The poor pot was a mess of dead leaves until February when new leaves began to emerge. Now, about half of the surface has new leaves emerging through the mass of dead leaves and about 10 or so scapes.
 
Great Scott! Possibly an environmental response to the disturbed stolons?  Well, maybe I will mess up my plant and see if it makes a difference. How wet are you keeping yours?
 
The 6-inch pot is sitting in about 1-inch, more or less, of water in a 3-ft x 4-ft tray along with a bunch of pots containing a variety of CPs. Student assistants are told to not water the CPs from above, but who knows what actually happens. Sometimes the tray becomes dry for a day or so before someone notices and adds water.
 
Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhha! I am growing mine almost as an aquatic. I have been less than happy with the growth, and have been on the verge of trying a drier medium. I'll bet the drying off had something to do with the trigger :) Then again, I might be jumping to conclusions, but wouldn't it be great to finally evolve a reliable strategy for flowering this species that doesn't include Astrology?
 
I still think that temperature and day length is the key to flowering difficult utric species. People with greenhouses always seem to be abe to get difficult plants to flower.

I bet you could look for information on orchids that grow in similar habitats, and find some good advice.

BTW How come I don't have to log in to post in this forum?
 
I am not sure of what triggers this plants into blooming. Being tropical plants, it might be a high variation in humidity of the air, wetness of the medium acompanied by a slight variation in daylength and/or temperature.

I say this because it is what i experience here (remember i live in Colombia at 1500 meters elevation). Usually on the wet season the humidity is high and temps are a little lower while on the dry season the temps are higher and humidity lower. There are places where ther are 2 wet and 2 dry seasonds during the year, at other places ther is only 1 wet and one dry season.
 
  • #10
It must be beginners luck for me with this species. I just noticed that my U. tricolor is sending up a flower scape  
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I only received this one as a small start last October and although it seems to be growing well it hasn't exactly filled it's small 3inch dwarf pot yet. Growing conditions have been natural light, dappled shade, and it's been kept very wet all winter. It's recently been very dry in the UK, so I have let the water level fall from soil surface to just 1/2 an inch deep for a few weeks and only resumed high water levels again a week ago. This might have triggered it. The plants have been quite cool over the winter, with min. temps of 7C, so the increase in temperature and light (intensity and photoperiod) could also have played a part.

Even more exciting, for me at least,  is the appearance of a flower scape on my U. reniformis small-leaved form. I've been trying to get this to flower for years. It's grown under the same conditions as the U. tricolor, but kept much drier over Winter. Maybe it was all the recent disturbance that this plant has experienced that triggered flowering, as I dug out a few bits to trade a month or so ago.

Will post pictures of flowers of both species in a few weeks, providing they don't abort.

Vic
 
  • #11
Good luck with the tricolor Vic - I don't think mine's flowered yet. They keep sending up rather weedy scapes on which the buds don't develop and which eventually just die off. My U. reniformis Small grows and flowers OK with the stolons growing around a deep water tray.

Giles
 
  • #12
I am going to have to agree with Giles_KS and admit that my U. tricolor scapes are also weedy-looking and eventually die off without producing flowers (so far). The scapes are about 5 inches high and seem to get a fuzzy fungus on the upper 2/3. The plant is grown in the open with good air circulation, so the fuzzy fungus is strange. I keep hoping that at least some of the scapes will eventually produce flowers.
 
  • #13
Thanks for the warning Giles, the flower scape is currently 2 1/2 inches and showing no signs of fungus, yet! In previous years, the scapes on many of my small, terrestrial Utrics have been attacked by a white, powdery fungus (mildew?), which whilst unsightly, doesn't seem to affect the flowers. For some reason, there is no sign of this fungus this year, so hopefully things might be O.K. At the first sign of any fungus on my U. tricolor, I'll be ready with the fungicide spray!, it seems there is nothing to lose by trying to zap it.

Cheers

Vic
 
  • #14
I have had similar experience as regarding the powdery white moldy substance on the flower stalks. The stalks continued to grow and bloom though, here shown on some bisquamata recently:

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On a similar note, I have now been trying for ~2 years to get my u. longifolia to flower, so far my attempts have been unsuccessful. I aquired my clone from Tamlin, if I remember correctly he hasn't seen flowers on his yet either.... or have you?

Either way, I took multiple cuttings (which by now are growing well) and will put them in different conditions (water, temp, light, etc.) to test what seems to trigger flower best in this species. We'll see how that goes.

I could be way off but from my experience flowering in both utrics and genliseas seems to be triggered by a significant drop in the water level. I have noticed this with several species.

-noah
 
  • #15
Thanks for the photo Noah, that stuff looks identical to the fungus I get. Does anyone know what it is? It might help with control, if we could I.D. it.

Vic
 
  • #16
Yep. That is what the fungus on my tricolor scapes look like also.
 
  • #17
My flower scape turned black, about 2/3rd of the way up last week and the top half fell off! No fuzzy grey stuff though.

I guess you can't win them all, I'll have to keep dreaming of this one's flowers, along with my U. humboltii and U. nelumbifolia. One day
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Vic
 
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