Any one have this Orchid Cactus ?

I'll let the experts weigh in on how to save epie pollen. I've never done it before. Since your parent plant blooms at night, I suspect it would get pollinated by moths.

Moths and bats spread the pollen on night bloomers. Not sure which is the pollinator for Epi. strictom.

Thanks Annette and Carol.
There is about 3 more days of blooming still on the Parent Plant.
So I will go up tonight and look for any suspect pollinators.


It has been Raining all day so I have decided to remove all the seeds from my original Fruit slices.
The seeds are very sticky and are hard to separate.
I decided to put them into an old Honey Jar ½ full of water and a spoon full of beach sand.
I then shook it for more than an hour.
When all the sticky gel was washed off I put them on my Studio work bench.

What a great way to clean seeds. Let's us know about the progress if you plan on planting them.

I'm not sure how many of you know the secret of soaking seeds in water ?
After one hour all the seeds soak up water at an equal rate.
ONLY THE VIABLE SEED WILL SINK.
The ones that float are RS 98% of the time.

I found 26 seeds inside the first seed pod/fruit that I cut up into slices.
18 of them sunk quickly to the bottom of a glass jar full of water.
8 of them remained floating for over 3 hours.
On closer examination under a 'Jewlers Eye Piece' the 26 good seed have small white things coming out of them.
I will plant all of the seeds but separate the good from the bad.
I just hope I won't need to wait ½ a year for some results.

Has anyone else grown them from seed ?
I have just planted them in a seed tray.
Now wish me luck.

Yes Annette, a cool way of doing things.
Most seeds have a hard outer shell.
They need scarification.
Another method is submersing them in boiling hot water. (google it)
If I am not buisy I prefer the sand and water method.
Some people will even use an angle grinder to wear away the shell.
Impossible with these seeds, too darn small.
But it does work on Mango seeds. ^_^
A lot of the Australian Natives will only shoot after a good boiling.

kell.

Thanks for sharing, I wish you best of luck with your seeds. I've learned a new word
"scarification". What did you use for your potting medium in the seed trays?

I only used one small tray as there were only 26 seeds.
I made my mixture out of 10% standard potting mix and 90% coarse River Sand. (sharp sand)
It has worked for me on so many other seeds. (sand won't hold water)
So I thought I would give it a try here.
I will keep you posted on their progress.

Scarification: http://forestry.about.com/od/treeplanting/qt/scarification.htm

Have you noticed the Fruit is five sided ?

Kell, thanks for the link on scarification. It also gave a link for stratification. Both were interesting.

That fruit looks way cool, I've never seen one before, such a pretty color as well. I wonder if the fruit are eaten by birds and animals?

Last night started out a bit of a poor Flower watching experience.
At 6pm a massive black thunderstorm rolled right over my place.
It dumped more than 4 ½” of rain in about two hours.
I put away tripod and all my Photography gear and went to bed.

At 10-30pm I went outside to find two of my newly planted cuttings in full Flower.
One of them was the one rooting in water.
This time the Flower was perfectly OK. ^_^
I left the old deformed Flower on to see what might happen to it.
These Pictures were taken free-hand so they are not as clear as my Studio Pictures.

Pic # 2.

The Colour on the centre stem looks Redder than the previous Pictures.

Very nice, any scent from the blooms?

Back to the Warer Rooting Plant.
I am way happy about this outcome.

Yes Annette there is a very strong scent that goes on for several hours.

There are still more buds for tonight.
My next point of interest is to see how many times a year they Flower.

Great, I just read on Matts Landscape website they bloom mid to late summer. With the size of the parent plant, does it have buds at different stages?

That's the beauty of living in tropical weather year round, you get to enjoy these blooms more than once per year :-) I must confess my zone envy.

My Passion in life is the Cold, Ice and Snow. (born in København)
I would move to Canada or Alaska in a heart beat if it was not for my family here in Queensland.
I even have my new House picked out. ^_^

Gorgeous setting, but way too far north and cold for me. The issue is I love growing tropical plants, but I do not live in a zone that allows them to live outside all the time. Canada and Alaska are nice, but I wouldn't want to live in either place. Too short of a bloom season for me.

This message was edited Feb 21, 2012 10:59 PM

We have a saying here in Ozz.
"The grass is always Greener on the other side".

I guess if I lived in Alaska I would pine for Queensland.
We have two growing times here in Brisvegas.
Day time and Night time. ^_^

Now that's the kind of weather that I can handle, LOL.

Did you know that poor little Fish Nemo was born on our "Great Barrier Reef ?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finding_Nemo
I can drive there in just a few hours.

But I really do love the Mountains best of all.
This is us at the 'Glass House Mountains'.

Wow, the Glass House Mountains look amazing. What a beautiful shot. BTW, Finding Nemo is still one of my favorite movies, LOL. I'm still a kid at heart.

Yes I agree with you about Our Mountain.

This is Beerwah, the biggest of this group of Mountains.
The Late Crocodile Man has his 'Wildlife Park' at these Mountains.

Kell, Beerwah is just beautiful. You live in an amazing part of the world. Do people climb/scale all of those mountains? They look rather steep.

Yes Cem,
People do Climb every one of these Mountains.
The East face of Beerwah is the highest and also the steepest.
It takes us about 4 hours to complete the ascent.
The overhang in the second last Picture is more than 8 meters wide. (fun)

But in reality we don't have anything like YOUR Yosemite National Park.
Now there is a real Climbers paradise. ^_^

This is a Picture of Mt Beerwah on the left and Mt Crookneck on the right.

I am proud to say I entered this Picture in a Queensland Tourist Promotion Contest.
It won first prize and is being used world wide to try to get Yall to come visit us. ^_^

Yesterday, I was very pleased to see the first signs of my Epi. seeds begin to sprout.
I wonder how many of Yall have ever seen this miracle of life occur ?
I planted 18 good seed in this bed.
And 8 bad ? seed in another bed.

Next day much more progress.
You can clearly see the black seed attached to the top of the young Epi. on the far left.

That's one of the 18 good seed I planted in here. (no doubt about it)

Kell, your seeds germinated quickly. You must have some seriously good soil. The scarification must have made a difference.

Congrats on getting first place for your picture.

Today there are 9 young shoots.

Thanks Annette,

This is the end of night four of My Flowering Epis.
And yes, last night there was yet another Flower on one of my Epies.
There are now only 3 Flowers yet to come.
But they do look a few weeks behind.
Today I will return to the Parent Plant and pick as many fruit as I can reach.
I am anxious to grow and document as many young plants from seed as possible.
It has become my main mission in life. † † † (besides Christianity)

Well I got 8 new fruit.
I have only Photographed 4 of them here.
The other 4 were so ripe they burst open as I picked them.
So they went straight into my glass Jar of water.

Today was yet another exciting day here on the Mid East Coast of Ozz.
I start off my day by watering My 60 odd Potted Plants.
I noticed that ALL 18 of the Epis have shot.
And they are now 25mm tall.

And still no sign of the 8 that floated in the water.

Interesting thread to read.

Ginger749 - You need patience with those seeds. I've grown "day blooming" epis from seed. Its fascinating to watch the development. My seedlings are now in their third year and are just starting to look like the parents - large flat leaves. Not sure when I can expect to see blooms, maybe not for another couple of years.

these are some of last years blooms. Not expecting buds this year until end of April.

Mike

Hi Rob,

That second picture of yours sure looks like what I have growing here.
Thanks for your encouragement.
Do you have pictures of your Grown from seed progress ?
If you have a link ? I would love to take a look.

This afternoon the end of the round stems have 3 distinct leaves on them.
Too early for a Picture of this stage.

Thanks again. ( and I do have lots of patience )

Well it has been one week since my Epies first started Flowering.
Last night the Big Multi Head Cutting growing in soil produced two more Flowers. (only one more to go)

This time I knew exactly what to do.
I went out at 1am and took Pictures.
I then got a Water Colour Brush and rubbed it all over the Pollen on both Flowers.
What I am hoping to do is produce my own Fruit on demand.

I have noticed the Parent Plant as big as it is, only produces a dozen Fruit.
I would like to increase that to 100% on My Flowers.
Can anyone tell me if I'm dreaming ?