The dawning of..........

I'm in plant lust .
that is too beautiful for words

*APPLAUSE!!!!!!!*

Robert.

magnolia-- I just make it all up! Here is another little tidbit of lily trivia: all that orange/yellow/brown stuff that stains your clothes is NOT pollen!! It is a powdery protective coating that is ON the pollen! The two different substances (coating and pollen grains) can be seen separately under a microscope.

pard, you never cease to amaze me. I did not know that. Sharing little know tidbits with my plant-loving 8 year old is one of my favorite things to do. Wait until I tell her the news! the amazing pard! we are lucky tp have such knowledge here in lilyland! Thanks for sharing it!

pardilinum revealed:
"Here is another little tidbit of lily trivia: all that orange/yellow/brown stuff that stains your clothes is NOT pollen!! It is a powdery protective coating that is ON the pollen! "

Live and learn folks, live and learn!

Thanks for that, pard.

Robert.

Here is my reference for the pollen tidbit: At our Lily Day in June Judith Freeman showed slides she made of pollen grains showing the dark grains and the yellow stuff scattered around them. She looks for whether pollen from a particular cultivar germinates or not. When you are in the business of hybridizing this information can save alot of time (ie don't waste time trying to use sterile pollen). Judith was particularly proud of how well a cheap digital camera worked on her microscope. All very scientific. Maybe when I retire I will buy a microscope...

Wallaby, That is one of the most beautiful lilies I've ever seen. ;) Very nice.

Pard, you can probably pick up a scope fairly reasonably at any universities surplus department. :)


Diann

Good idea, Ticker. At UW Madison they always have these sales on equipment they used for a year or so that works well, really well most of the time. Prices are usually very good.
After all, Pard, don't you deserve it?? :0)

You could also buy one that is meant as a childrens 'toy', I got one many years (25?) ago and it was 600x magnification, a single hair looked really wide. I don't have it now!

I find many species to have exceptional beauty, sometimes I wonder why man messes with them! We always want something else/better.

pard, I snipped 3 anthers off yesterday's new one, no new ones open today. Is 2 days long enough for freshness? If you dmail me your address I can get it sent to you, the post can be anything from 3 to 10 days, I posted 4 envelopes on a Friday and at least 3 got there on Monday. I am wondering how long it remains viable out of the freezer, it seems to vary from what I have read. One species actually closes when it rains to prolong pollen viability. Heat also seems to lessen viabilty in some plants.

here's a lecture on fertilisaton, scroll down

http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/faculty/webb/Bot201/Angiosperm/MagnoliophytaLab99/AnthophytaLabSexRepro.htm

Interesting article on stored and fresh pollen germination

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15564535&dopt=Abstract

http://www.actahort.org/members/showpdf?booknrarnr=620_39

http://www.actahort.org/books/673/673_11.htm

A lotta science

http://www.plantcell.org/cgi/content/full/16/suppl_1/S46

Article on wild lilies

http://www.sinorama.com.tw/en/print_issue.php3?id=200259105038e.txt&mag=past

pbs mentions being late to flower it wouldn't set seed unless grown in a greenhouse, which I am doing

http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/Lilium

Bulbmeister had it in Spring 05, the link said $31.45 for 1, they might have it again next spring but is much more expensive than Potterton's at £8 even with costs.

http://www.bulbmeister.com/flowershop/sso2005/page07.html

http://aolsearch.aol.co.uk/web?query=%27lilium+gloriosoides+seed+set%27&isinit=true&restrict=wholeweb

My, have you been busy researching, Wallaby! Thanks for all that.

Lefty I will send you some pollen too if you'd like it but not sure how much I will get from 3 anthers. Next to open I will snip another 3 if it doesn't look enough. dmail me your addy and the pollen is yours.

Species lilies, the more interesting ones, are difficult to come by. Which straight species do you have?

I just lurve research!

Ticker-- Why didn't I think of that! My first computers came from university surplus and I paid only $25 for them! Of course I deserve a microscope!

wallaby-- Thanks for the research. I love research too! I'll be spending some time browsing through the information there. I think my big freezer is right at -20C.

You are most gracious, Wallaby. My largest speciosum var. rubrum still has a few buds not open yet. This is very exciting.

My list that includes seedlings:

Lilium
amabile
callosum
canadense
canadense var. rubrum
citronella
davidii var. wilmontii
duchartrei
fargesii
formosanum
henricii var. maculatum
kesselringianum
lankongense
leichtlinii var. maximowiczii
leucanthum
mackliniae
martagon
martagon alba
martagon 'Ameleta'
martagon 'Claude Schride'
martagon 'Terrace City'
martagon var. cattaniae
michiganense
monadelphum
nanum
nepalense
oxypetalum var. insigne
pardalinum ssp. vollmeri
phillipinense
pilosiusculum
polyphyllum
sp. (1) Chen Yi
sp. (2) Chen Yi
sp. (16) Chen Yi
sp. (20) Chen Yi
sp. (21) Chen Yi
speciosum var. rubrum
speciosum var. gloriosoides
szovitsianum
taliense
tsingtauense

But only about half are old enough to bloom, and there are quite a few where winter hardiness is not fully tested (or tested at all) for my zone 4. Also, it would not surprise me if a few of these are not correctly identified.

Additional seeds I planted this year are:
Lilium
concolor var. coridion
concolor var. strictum
lophophorum
sargentiae (hey, the seed was free)
sp. ex China

I'm just a wee bit addicted to the species, as they say, wild horses couldn't tear me away.

Rick

Quite a long list there!

I see I have a lot of catching up to do, but since I have just about (?)exhausted other passions I am ready and rearing to go, wild horses come run with me!!!!!

I only have a couple of young L speciosum rubrum, besides that not a lot other than Black Beauty which is a hybrid between sp rubrum and henryi.

Also seed grown philippinense.
nepalense

A few other hybrids, some have almost disappeared, one called Everest from J Parkers here which they still have is quite rare and I love it, I had it by a west wall and it got too dry and smothered by other things. It's a huge white with a little spotting, frilly petals and heavily scented.

I do think seed grown and species are more likely to live longer. I feel the same about species gladioli of which there are many very interesting ones, another passion to run with! Once started there's no stopping, you just get more drawn into their beauty!

Janet

wallaby1~

I never paid much attention to it before, but I just re-read a statement about Liliums in general not being long-lived. I guess it would be better, in that sense, to receive or purchase young (smallish for the type) bulbs (and perhaps wait a season for blooms) so that one would know that whatever the life expectancy, the bulb would have maximum time left.

It's nice to get a huge bulb, but that may mean an older bulb. Propagating it would be on the short-list of things to do.

This may also explain sudden, "mysterious" disppearances of a favorite bulb, when all other cultural concerns have remain relatively constant, and you don't have voles.

Robert.

raydio

I do wonder if it's disease and/or just generally the wrong culture which causes the demise of lilies.

In nature they would set themselves around anyway to keep themselves going. Gladioli papilio makes many small offsets as well as seed, species lilies most likely have developed to reproduce according to their natural enemies.

Perhaps when lilies are crossed and no longer have any of the normal traits that nature would have given them to survive in their original locations they wil go by the bye easier?

I really don't know how long-lived some species are, but my L nepalense is doing it's job of making more bulbs by runners.

I also believe that most things grown yourself in the correct manner will live longer, most commercially produced plants are grown for speed and cost efficiency, not the slow, hard grow technique as they should be.

Never heard of "not long lived" as a general lily statement before. I don't think I believe it. Certainly certain species are so, like L. pumilum, but I wouldn't think generally speaking. Perhaps part of the source of a statement like that might be that maybe most eventually get virus infected, and is the statement from an old source? One that would be prior to the plethora of breeding in the last 40 years or so?

My L. pumilum began declining at the end of flowering one year. The bulb did seem to have turn to mush, but it was certainly not due to poor drainage. I will grow it again, but I wasn't too fond of the particular clone I had anyway.

Regarding my species listing, I didn't include simple species crosses. You could add:

Lilium
'Black Beauty' (speciosum var. rubrum x henryi)
x marhan (hansonii x martagon)
'Super Tsing' (martagon x tsingtauense)
'White Henryi' (leucanthum var. centrifolium x henryi)

Regarding gladioli, do you have G. atroviolaceus? It is perfectly hardy up here. I have grown it for 8 years. Maybe you could cross it with some of those other cool South African natives. I would be happy to test the cold hardiness of the progeny for you, LOL.

Rick

The only species glads I have at the moment are papilio, which is actaully G papilio Purpureoauratus Group, the straight G papilio is green which nobody seems to have discovered (but me). Also G communis ssp byzantinus.

When I get myself sorted, perhaps next year I will go full steam ahead on the species glads as well as lilies, and I will never be sorted! They are extremely beautiful, and there is plenty of them. Silverhill seeds in SA have a lot of species, as well as many other interesting SA bulbs, I don't know where to stop sometimes!

Wow! It's a beauty! I wonder if it would cross? Imagine that crossed with G comm byzantinus, perhaps they would be compatible as both from similar areas.

http://www.botanic.co.il/a/picshow.asp?qcatnr=GLAATR&qseqnr=GLAATR1 (if you get a language installation thing just click cancel and it should come up)

Lefty~

I wish I could cite the source of the statement about Lilium lifespan, but as that wasn't the topic of my inquiry, I don't recall how I came across it. Maybe the writer meant it in a relative sense--that compared to other perennials' lifespans, lilies would be shorter, though that might be a number of years. Hemerocallis would be a good example of a "long-lived" perennial.

I think it was on a page on the internet of recent authoring. I was researching epigeal-hypogeal germination and L. formosanum in general and it is prolly on a page connected with those. I'll keep an eye out for it, should I come across it again.

Good to hear that it may not be all that true. I couldn't say one way or the other, couldn't say from one year to the next if I lost an old bulb or younger one-- never paid much attention to that. I might take note that I don't see the "really strong stem I saw last year" but not investigate "why".

Robert.

Here's one mention of a specific lifespan that I wouldn't consider as "long". I don't know how this rates as far as the genus Lilium goes (whether this is long, short or in-between for lilies), but as far as perennials go, definitely on the short side, IMO.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilium_auratum

What *is* the lifespan of a lily, generally speaking? I don't think of L. auratum as being long-lived.

Robert. Edited to add another link.

Here's the statement I was referring to about Lilium being short-lived:
http://www.plantanswers.com/crinums.htm
Scroll down to "Bulbs 101".
R.

This message was edited Sep 1, 2006 11:55 PM

Robert you beat me to it! I was going to add the link after finding it researching L auratum.

You will note there that it has been used widely for breeding. This probably explains most lilies short life span.

Lefty, 'your' lily has opened today, I will snip your anthers off. That is perfect timing, 2 days for posting on Monday.

One thing I have noticed is the stigma on each lily has bent out to touch one of the anthers. The one in the house is still looking fresh, and it has done the same. There is a droplet of water formed around the stigma.

It looks to be a complicated process, and seems to need reaction between several pollen particles and spore in order to be viable. By leaning itself on the pollen the stigma may be interacting at a pace suitable to the development of the fertilisation process, the water droplet may be aiding in this

http://www.emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/biobk/BioBookflowers.html

We have had cool weather and high humidity, this may just be the conditions it requires to complete the process, and could be the replication of it's natural habitat in the mountains of Taiwan.

I did notice on the flowers in the greenhouse the stigma/pistil are leaning towards the east, where the sun rises. Even the 4th flower opening today has already done that, the others took a while. It's raining today and even cooler, this could be a trigger as Autumn approaches. The flower I cut the anthers from unfortunately I took them from the east side! But I did plaster it with pollen first from the remaining anthers.

It's all educational and interesting to observe. I now know that I should remove the anthers from the west side.

I love those little discoveries one makes in observing plants closely day-to-day. Fun and fascinating. Little quirks and "events" that aren't showy and really aren't necessary to enjoying a plant, but add to the mystery of what plants do for whatever reason, that are there but remained largely unnoticed.

Just a question: When a plant is said to be "self-sterile", does this only refer to an individual bloom's inability to be fertilized by its own pollen but a seperate blossom on the same plant could fertilize it?

I know that Brugmansias are funny about setting seed if the pollinator is closely related, almost requiring them to all be near hybrids.

Robert.

Some info but it's not very clear if they are talking about just some species, no answer to it either. It appears they don't make viable seed from a single plant, but they have got seed so I would assume if it made some it is sterile! By the title they think they have fertile seed from their own single plant.

Does that mean my L nepalense seed is sterile too? I may as well chuck it, but will hang on, I'm an optimist. I got 20 seeds from one pod that had good embryos last year. It does make more bulbs from runners, so does that mean each plant is no longer the same plant?

http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/pbs/2004-October/019735.html

From the expert McRae. they are self-sterile, meaning you can't fertilise from the same plant.

http://pnwls.org/id4.html

I am still an optimist, but it looks like I could be wasting my time. I will take pollen to try on others next year.

Aha! Never say never, just because they SAY they are self-sterile doesn't always mean they WILL be.

Read the 'reproduction' section

http://ecoregion.ucr.edu/full.asp?sp_num=172

http://ecoregion.ucr.edu/full.asp?sp_num=182

Look at #9,

http://researchers.adm.niigata-u.ac.jp/public/NIIMIYoshiji_b.html

wallaby if you have embryos you should plant the seeds as they may well be good. Plants from stolons are clones of the original plant, as are bulblets from scales, stem bulblets and bulbils. I have pardies from 2 different sources and have interpollinated them. Once you get your species seeds and grow them out you can interpollinate to make more seeds (if you choose to do so). Your best bet for species (other than starting from seed) is to have specimens from different sources

From what I read from your research maybe you should pollinate your glorywhatsit on a daily basis, or maybe twice a day once in the am and then in the pm (trying to cover all bases here lol).

Here are some pardy pods;-) They are cracking open now and a quick examination of the top seeds merits a big thumbs up!

Regarding lily life span: Janet may have given me an "ah hah" moment, but I still don't put much weight in the statement:

Lilium auratum, being short lived (yes I do think 3-4 years is short) and passing on that gene is logical. When I said I don't know if I believe it, I spoke from experience and anecdotes from my area. virtually all Oriental lilies are "known" to be short lived up here. Some people can't get them through one winter. The Northstar Lily Society (our local club) often recommends planting in spring to get a better foothold before winter. While I still contend that this may be due to cultivation needs not being met, I don't yet have much of a data base to support it. Most people here tend to grow asiatics, with martagons becoming a second option. These, of course, are much tougher plants and is maybe skewing my conclusions.

Just maybe, that Texas U extension agent is concluding his opinion on the same basis: I am sure they grow a lot more orientals down there than here, and I wonder how hospitable his area is for lilies ingeneral.

Pistols pointing to the east: could it be to enhance the fertilization process at the stigma by warming in the morning, and not heating up in the afternoon? I have only observed the pistols turning up, never to one side. Interesting, and interesting that it seemed to have happened more quickly in cooler weather - supporting such a theory.

The term self-sterile would include all flowers of the same plant, and all flowers produced by plants that were vegetatively propagated from a same plant. The genetic code is identical in all these example.

However, that doesn't necesarily mean no seed or sterile seed 110% of the time. I have always said: the only real rule in nature is that every rule is broken - at least once. There is always the chance of genetic mutation in the pollen gameteophyte. One that might differentiate enough to produce fertilization. And I don't doubt there are other ways to get around the problem without human intervention.

I hadn't realized that lilies were self-sterile (in general?). If that is true, then my Lilium lankongense must have crossed with davidii, as that is the only lily I had blooming at that time in the same taxonomic section. I do have two lankongense plants of different origin, but they didn't bloom similtaneously.

As far as the stigma touching the anther(s), I would say that in the wild it is inconsequential. Wind and/or insects do the job of contact just fine. Inside, a paint brush, or even shaking should suffice. However, as you point out Wallaby, exactly when the optimal time for pollenation might be a mystery to us. Shaking every day would be my solution.

(And, I'm so excited!)

wallaby1 queried:
"I got 20 seeds from one pod that had good embryos last year. It does make more bulbs from runners, so does that mean each plant is no longer the same plant?"

That's just it, isn't it.....still *very* closely related....too close?

In trying to get Ipomoea pandurata to set seed, the word was that the plants were self-sterile (even from different flowers on the same vine. This is apparently true for mine: no seed set. Also, the pollinator had to be not directly related to the pod parent or at least very distantly so. I've tried to get vines in the general area to set seed and no luck so far.

Robert.

Pardy you saw the same as I did, on the Japanese site #9 mentioned the age of the flower in relation to self-pollination, and Lefty yes we don't know at which vital stage or stages they are fertilised.

I think it may vary with species, some may need a lengthy contact, others not, also other conditions may need to be met, yes the warmth of the sun, perhaps moisture in the air.

As the stigma is in constant contact with the pollen they should sort themselves out, and I can at least HOPE something works!

raydio, the L nepalense may be too closely related, but if I were to believe they wouldn't set seed then why did I get some? The cue here is to listen and read, but to take what you see with a pinch of salt.

I did sow the seed from L nepalense this spring, perhaps it should have been done in the autumn, but they were late to mature and our summer had been a cool one, frost and cold weather by mid October. Perhaps these conditions suited it. They did get some frost before I harvested them if I remember right. I still have hopes of some germinating, it will be interesting to see. The pot is in a greenhouse.

I do believe that nobody is really certain of what can happen, and plants that are being grown away from their natural habitat are rather like panda bears that won't breed in captivity. They have adapted to growing conditions specific to the plant, and man expects them to grow wherever man wants them to grow. Perhaps not so, as clever as man is at manipulating nature, there is often a lack of understanding of the natural cycles of nature which has occured since life began on earth.

Even in nature plants don't reproduce with regularity, many wait until conditions are correct. On the off chance of conditions being correct in their unnatural state I will continue to try!

Great brain-storming here, we are learning by sharing!

wallaby1 wrote:
"raydio, the L nepalense may be too closely related, but if I were to believe they wouldn't set seed then why did I get some? The cue here is to listen and read, but to take what you see with a pinch of salt."

Yep, yep, yep. And I have an "in" with all those "facts": I rarely remember which one are said to be self-sterile / produce infertile seeds etc., so I end up trying this or that anyway!
:-Z I do waste some time, but you never know when you'll have a plant that doesn't know it's not supposed to do something or (as is frequently the case, unfortunately) a plant is not what it is sold as (a species not being entirely pure etc.) so one can have luck propagating a nice one anyway.

I wonder if those partially developed seeds that abort and ones called infertile might be cultured? Time to set up your lab........

Robert.

Thinking minds are becoming a rare breed in the American populus, but certainly not here.

And however would those thinking minds have got together without DG?!!

So correct "but you never know when you'll have a plant that doesn't know it's not supposed to do something or (as is frequently the case, unfortunately) a plant is not what it is sold as (a species not being entirely pure etc.)"

Wouldn't it be nice if plants could talk? The conversation would go something like,

Duh, they drag me all over the place, shove me into compounds , feed me a load of garbage, then expect me to perform!

Speaking of a load of garbage, I just dumped a big bowl of jello into my compost bin. I just didn't know what else to do with it...

Well I don't know about anyone else, but MY plants would never say "Duh", in any language. (We can't expect the foreigners to be multilingual you know.)

I think a weed would say "Duh".

Pard, I'm speechless.

Lefty-- the microherd will come and eat it (since I wouldn't!), poop it, live their life cycle and die, themselves turning into compost, and then next year I will feed it all to my lilies. I have really thought this out, spending a good part of the day planning the jello event. I will look at it tomorrow and see how it's going...

pardalinum shared:
"Speaking of a load of garbage, I just dumped a big bowl of jello into my compost bin. I just didn't know what else to do with it..."

And that made me laugh out loud. Thanks!

But I'm worried about your compost pile.........Hope it'll just melt away into protein and sugar. Carbs are good for the yard, aren't they?

Robert.

The mantra... it all leads back to compost. Maybe I will go out and take a picture of it...

"Ashes to ashes, funk to funky"

R.

Duh, (mine is confused, it will say that)!

pard, I was going to suggest you feed it to the lilies, but I see you have seriously done your homework on that!

One question though, if it was that bad why did you have it in the first place!

wallaby-- sometimes in the course of human events great sacrifices must be made. Refrigerator space is at a premium here... with both crispers full of seeds and seedling bags and one shelf full of bulblets and more seeds and the need to do some grocery shopping something just had to go. So I thought hard on it.. will it be the fresh from the garden green beans or the salad... Maybe the eight ball zuke? No, I have plans to stuff it with something one of these days (maybe the green beans sauteed with some herbs..). Then there was this huge bowl of past it's prime jello that had turned to something akin to rubber if you know what I mean (it was good at one time, I just hadn't finished it). so... out it went!