Quoting, flowering of VFTs

Daniel Tepas (Daniel_Tepas@du.maus.de)
Fri, 10 May 96 22:08:00 GMT

Hi all readers,

plese do _NOT_ quote the whole digest when replying (for ex. look at the
mail from Philip F. Wight in d. 707), some of us (at leat me ;-) have to
pay for receiving mails.

And now, to be on-topic: last year my large VFT flowered, and i tried to
?pollen? it, but I didn't have success. It did not produce any seed. I
read that some of the VFTs are self-sterile, means that a flower can not
be pollened by itself.

Today I bought a smaller VFT (the reason were 7 small plants inside the
pot, additional to the bigger plant sold) which are /very/ small, largest
traps about 4mm (less than 0.2 inches) long. I am not quite sure my
attempts to pollen the flower were right, so I would need a bit advise or
hear from some experience of other growers, that it is possible the plant
is self-sterile.

The older one is flowering again, and I put it outdoors, so maybe some
insects will do the work. I tried to pollen a s. flava flower some weeks
ago, and I hope it worked. The flower is off now, and it gets thicker and
thicker, so I hope to earn some seed.

A s. purpurea brought up two flowers, too, and I put it outdoors, too,
because I fear that these flowers are too small for my inelegant fingers
to do the polling.

I would like to hear of other's experience with polling flowers of VFTs
or sarraccenias by hand or by insects, and if you got any seeds of this.

Ciao, Daniel.