Tropicals & Tender Perennials: Look, my first seed pod, 1 by upanatemat3am

upanatemat3am wrote:
O.K. I'll fall for this one! Yes I do know about pollinating hoyas, I've seen it done several times, but it's something I don't do. What in the world would I do with 10,000 hoyas? or more! I have seed pods on about 10 plants in my greenhouse right now (all from flies and bumble bees) and intend to close my eyes, grit my teeth and throw them in the trash. For those of you trying a cats whisker, it is much too big to fit into all but the largest of flowers, like the Ereostemmas. Even most needles are too large. If I were going to try to pollinate hoya flowers I would use a tiny little quilting needle with a silk thread tied through the eye (that's so if you drop the tiny little needle you can "maybe" find it again). The pollinia of a hoya is the little things that sit at the base of the stigma (the ovaries that stick up from the very center of the flower) They appear as little brown specks at the ends of tiny little open scissors that point out away from the center. When most of us think of pollinating a flower we think of pollen dust. Hoyas do not have pollen dust, they have what is called pollinia which is soft and fleshy. You don't dig these out, you very gently stroke them with the side of the tip end of the needle and they will literally jump onto the end of that needle, or whatever your using, and almost immediatly cross and cling to the needle. Realize now, that this pollinia is so small that you probably won't be able to see it with the naked eye, so you're kind of guessing whether you actually have something or not. A good magnifying glass will help tremendously especially if you have someone else to hold it so you don't accidently drop the needle. Let's say you now have the pollinia on the end of the needle. What are you going to do with it? Where are you going to put it? In each of the 4 spots where there is still a pollinia there are also channels, Ed Gilding calls them guide rails and that's exactly what they are. Lay the tip end of the needle ever so gently into one of these guide rails and very carefully slide it out. The pollinia should remain and if all goes well, will automatically work its way to where it belongs. It's best to use another umbel of flowers on the same plant as that is probably your best chance for success...and that's what insects do. There's normally only about 1 chance in a million that two different species will cross no matter how many of your plants are in bloom, but it does happen occassionally, and almost always with species in the same section. If man intervenes, all kinds of things can happen which leads to bigeneric hybrids that are like mules...they can't reproduce.
I've attached a photo of Hoya rigida because it is one of the best flowers to show the corona, stigma (overies) and pollinia sacks..
Joanne, if you need any more instructions, you're not very far from me. Come for a visit and I will show you exactly how to make thousands of hoya plants to take care of.
Annie W.