Have you got a Geiger counter handy? ;-) Of the 20 open flowers on my
colony, three have five petals - all have four style/stigmas. (One looks as
if it has left space for a fifth petal, but only four petals are present).
>Ooh ooh! I've had arcturi seeds sitting around for about a year too, and
>NOTHING. I've also HEAVILY stratified some, and even FROZE others.
>Nothing yet. I wish you luck!
Patience seems to be the key. Since my seed was *fresh* and took a year to
germinate, I'd expect older seed to take longer. Being an alpine plant would
probably tend to make it slower growing too. You could try a little heat
treatment to try and trigger the seeds to germinate - 25 to 30 celsius should
be close to what they would experience in the wild.
>Peter, you know, I think that I do agree with you that Polypompholyx
>shouldn't be reduced to subgeneric status. U. tenella and U. multifida
>are the only two Utrics with four calyx lobes, and the traps are
>different, although there IS an interesting variation in the types of
>traps in other Utrics. Still, I will bow to TAYLOR here (as he
>grumbled). :-)
It seems such a pity to abandon such a great name as Polypomphlox ...
I'm sure there are examples of genera being distinguished on lesser
details than this.
Out of curiosity, has anyone attempted an intergeneric hybrid between, for
example, Sarracenia and Darlingtonia? Such hybrids were viewed to be
"impossible" for orchids not too long ago, but are now commonplace.
>Anyway, TAYLOR (Peter's 1988 monograph, not Paul!) says that when
>cleistogamous, subulata's reduced or crumpled petals can also
>be WHITE or REDDISH. Sounds like your plant, huh Mike?
My subulata has the white cleistogamous flowers. Before reading about such
flowers here, I had passed them off as "duds". Is cleistogamy a genetic trait
or is it environmental?