This will be the third Summer I have encouraged a Pereskiopsis plant to grow in the hope it will flower.

It has been suggested by the person who supplied the original cutting, it is P. diguetii but he was unsure if that was correct.

Both of us would like a positive ID, a flower may help to achieve that.

Some time ago saw a comment attributed to Rose that he had seen a Pereskiopsis scandens(considered a synonym of Pereskiopsis kellermanii Rose (1908)) climb up a tree to a height of 20ft, possibly we have longer to wait yet.



Cheers

Here's looking at you, Kid. See one eye which appears to look at you.



Found this early this morning, never seen one like it before.

Cheers

Further developments in Mistletoe suspected flower buds.

Have removed the (query mark) from the file. If you look closely the globular structures are developing separate structures with a small ball at their ends, from the suspected flower buds.


Cheers

Photographing an A. americana quiote which I will harvest today, saw what I bought as a small plant in the 1990's. It is grown quite well but is yet to flower.

Looking at

I may have some time to wait yet, let's hope it's before I shake off the mortal coil so to speak.

Life's ephemeral, let's hope what there is of it, we live well and productively so.

Felled one of my A. americana quiotes this afternoon.

Created a bit of a problem this morning, snapped off the head of my Axe.

Where there's a will there's a way, decided to use some other Axe heads which had suffered the same fate and been used as wedges since.

Used one of my old long handled spades to remove the leaves mainly because I had worn out the spade portion and what was left was sharp.

Once I could get at the quiote without being speared, drove in the first axehead then followed that with another. Photo shows them just before the quiote was felled.


The growing tip is always, in my experience, soft, this time was no exception, it snapped off.


Mission achieved.

Have a Xanthorrhoea starting to flower, quite some bees working it at the moment but as time progresses there will be Wasps, Flies etc feeding as well.

In particular the largest Fly I have seen often visits these events, hope it makes an appearance.

Worst landing ever

peettee79 said:Worst landing ever

Hi
Looks like a small Wasp, is it?

Here with strong morning Easterlies, mainly Bees are the unfortunates.

Cheers

ausrpned said:Have a Xanthorrhoea starting to flower, quite some bees working it at the moment but as time progresses there will be Wasps, Flies etc feeding as well.

In particular the largest Fly I have seen often visits these events, hope it makes an appearance.

That is an incredible plant! Thank you for sharing.

Checking my Aloe plicatilis last evening and noticed it had a seed capsule.

Had tried to set a fruit whilst it was flowering, not sure if it was me or another pollinator responsible. It is however the first time the plant has produced a seed capsule.

Assume the plant is self fertile as there were no other Aloes flowering at the time.

They are supposed to tend that way.

Baja_Costero said:They are supposed to tend that way.

Hi Baja.
Ever tried to cross it with another Aloe? Could have some interesting results.

Might have collect some pollen and store it if there are no simultaneous flowering events.

Cheers

Needed some more pollination aids and thought it may interest others.

What you need is a pair of pliers, some thin, preferably galvanised wire, a piece of tubing, I use microirrigation tubing, and some "Cotton Balls".

With the latter I used to use "Ripple Cotton" but the Supermarkets now don't carry it any longer. The main thing is the Cotton Wool should not be tightly bound such as it is with what are here called, Cotton Buds.


The main reason for the small loop added in step 5, is so that if you do not have the end loop, the tubing is retained.

Cheers

ausrpned said:Ever tried to cross it with another Aloe? Could have some interesting results.

I have not tried. But yes, that is something worth trying. You probably should try to do it the other way around (plicatilis pollen to the other stigma) to avoid the selfing. But grow out those seeds from your pod and see what you get. You might get lucky.

Baja_Costero said:

I have not tried. But yes, that is something worth trying. You probably should try to do it the other way around (plicatilis pollen to the other stigma) to avoid the selfing. But grow out those seeds from your pod and see what you get. You might get lucky.

" other way around (plicatilis pollen to the other stigma)" the only problem that might arise is if the other species is self fertile. The usual method is to emasculate the flower before it's pollen is viable.

"But grow out those seeds from your pod and see what you get. You might get lucky."

Hope so, never tried to germinate Aloe seed before but it requires no great effort if I'm in possession of seed.

When/if the seed becomes available, will post a photo. In the meantime some protection of the capsule is in order, many an empty stomach in these parts.

Cheers

You probably would have to emasculate all the flowers on the inflorescence for that to work. I would imagine wind is enough to bring pollen from one flower to another on the same inflorescence.

The probability of any given aloe species being self-fertile is fairly low in my experience, and not something you generally have to worry about. K. plicatilis is definitely an exception.

I am curious to see what grows out of the seed in that capsule. Please keep us posted.

Baja_Costero said:
I am curious to see what grows out of the seed in that capsule. Please keep us posted.

Will do.

> The probability of any given aloe species being self-fertile is fairly low in my experience, and not something you generally have to worry about. K. plicatilis is definitely an exception.

Interesting, always good to learn something new.

Cheers

Baja_Costero said:
I am curious to see what grows out of the seed in that capsule.

Apparently it has been hybridised in the past.

Had a quick look around and thought you might find some of the info of interest.

Extract from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Kumara plicatilis is an attractive and interesting accent plant to have in a sunny garden.It was reportedly hybridised with Gonialoe variegata by the horticulturalist Justus Corderoy, and the resulting hybrid (published as Aloe × corderoyi Berger) was cultivated at Kew Gardens and at La Mortola.[7] However, as the two parent species are now considered to belong to separate genera, the hybrid is currently designated an intergeneric hybrid of the new nothogenus × Gonimara

https://www.sciencedirect.com/...
Gives you the PDF of the article.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/...
Gives you the webpage of the article.

https://www.researchgate.net/p...

Reproductive ecology of Aloe plicatilis, a fynbos tree aloe endemic to the Cape Winelands, South Africa the PDF file

Cheers

Interesting articles.

The xGonimara described above (which is over a century old) seems to have been lost to cultivation, or at least I am not finding any evidence of its rediscovery.

There are a few plicatilis hybrids out there. Here are some with decent pictures on the web.

x africana
http://www.instazu.com/media/1...

x barberae (scroll down to photos)
http://www.palmtalk.org/forum/...

x capitata
https://www.flickr.com/photos/...

x schelpei
http://jardindealoes.blogspot....

x speciosa (there is a plant at the Huntington Gardens in southern California)

"Jenny Lind" - with an unknown pollen parent
https://www.smgrowers.com/prod...

random eBay hybrid
https://picclick.com.au/Aloe-K...

Noticed this morning the Xanthorrhoea mentioned in my earlier post, was down.

Had a look thinking it could only be a Roo(Kangaroo) was responsible, as I got closer it became apparent that was the case, portions of the stalk had been eaten.

Have had that happen before so wasn't surprised.


Roo's don't just jump, browsing they lean forward on the paws and then move the rear end forward, then the paws/body forward.

As a result the tail is dragged along the ground.

Responsible muncher ID'd.

Cheers