> 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.
I'm pretty sure mine have produced seed by themselves, but its hard
to say as I now have more than one. They never produce much seed
though despite my efforts at pollenation. Only occasionally has a
flower developed a nice seed capsule with lots of seed. More often I
just find the odd seed in among the debris of the dead flower.
> 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.
Surely a Sarr. flower can't be too small? I've never really bothered
to try to get seed from mine. Do you realise where the receptive bits
of the stigma are? Somewhere near the 'points' ot the umbrella bit of
the flower I am told. This is very different from Darlingtonia where
there is a more traditional stigma on the end of the seed capsule.
-- Clarke Brunt (clarke@brunt.demon.co.uk)