In Bloom: What is this?

A weed that I neglected to remove all summer has finally come into bloom. It is quite attractive. The flowers are pea shaped (= legume family associations?) and small, less than half an inch. Its not a bad looking critter overall.
Do any of you know what it is?

UPDATE: With fluffnflowers comment plus a few from the Orchid Guide Digest I now believe the plant to be either Lespedeza cuneata or bicolor, both of which look very similar to my plant, are found in the whole of the Eastern half of the US, and, unfortunately, are listed as invasive weeds by one or more states. Hm.. I don't suppose anyone would want seed from my pretty little friend then.

In Bloom: Passiflora capsularis and sanguineolenta

Passiflora capsularis is a wonderful species. As you can see it has lovely white flowers, approximately 2 inches across with a strong scent of warm vanilla. It is wholly easy to grow, even flowering in comparatively small pots (4") in partial shade, so would be an excellent prospect for a hanging basket. I find they're slow to start from seed though, at least with the one batch I tried. I tried to start them in early spring with a heating mat from seed that came from my plant last summer. They absolutely refused to come up until mid-summer, by which time the pot had been moved outside. I'm lucky I hadn't dumped the pot in the compost heap.

Passiflora sanguineolenta is closely related to capsularis, and indeed their leaves and flowers are very similar in size and shape. Obviously the flower color is different and sanguineolenta has very little scent (at least this is true of my plant). In my more limited experience with this plant I'd find it is also similarly easy to grow, but I have not as yet tried to grow it from seed. I'd like to self pollinate my plant, but I seem unable to catch it at the right time of day to find it with ripened pollen still on the plant. The flowers change so quickly!

Blueberries!!!!

I was looking through my images today and found this one, taken July 4th, when the blueberries stared to ripen. I had intended to post it to the blog but never did. I have a 'Sunshine Blue', which is a self-fertile dwarf blueberry, who I keep in a large pot. It is an easy to grow variety. Its not a very big bush (and is not very mature at that!) but it had a good crop of berries this year that were most tasty.

Now and then I fantasize that I'd like to plant my whole yard in blueberries and make dry blueberry wine. Two years ago while vacationing in Bar Harbor, ME, we picked up a bottle of locally made, oak aged, dry blueberry wine from the Bartlett estate. mmmm...good stuff. Unfortunately you can only get it in Maine. Wish I could get it here in Maryland. Unlike many non-grape wines, it wasn't cloyingly sweet. Instead it was more like the best Merlot ever. If you're ever in Maine, do yourself a favor and get a case of the stuff!! (and drop one off at my house! thx!)

Contents of an Orchid Seed Pod

This is a phalaenopsis seed pod that recently split on its own. Fortunately I found it before it sent its charges to the wind and there was plenty of seed remaining. The pod was only about 5 months, but the seeds are a nice straw color, which suggests that they are ripe and viable. I didn't inspect them any more than that though. the remnant of the pod is there on the left. It is still very green as you can see. The contents come easily out, maybe with just a little coaxing.

The fluff shown here is what remains of the pollen tubes. It serves just like the silks you see on corn. In the photo you can see there is a darkened area of the fuzz, which is where there are seeds trapped in the matrix. To give them "the red pill" and free them from the matrix, I just grasp them in the forceps and rap sharply on the metal. They fall free easily onto the paper.

Here you can see the fuzz is free of seeds now.

And finally below, my nice crop of seeds ready to be sterilized and plated on a nice, rich media.

Dry seed sowing has some challenges. A split pod allows a chance for fungal spores to get into the seeds. Spores are rather difficult to kill. So as an added measure with dry seed I use the trick of soaking the seeds 8-16hrs in a mild sucrose solution with a little wetting agent. This can encourage the spores to germinate, essentially bringing them out of their protective shell, making them much easier to kill with a quick, low concentration bleach application (I use 7% of a high strength bleach (~6 or 6.15% hypochlorite) for 7min). This is followed by several washes with sterile distilled water and then the seeds are ready to plate on media. Too high a concentration or too long an exposure will kill the seeds, so you have to balance between the best sterilization you can get with the least collateral damage.

Protocorm Proliferation

For those of you who have heard the term, but never seen the animal, this is what protocorm proliferation looks like. For those of you who are no confused, I shall define as best I can.

Protocorm: This is the primordial bit of tissue that forms as an orchid seed germinates. The initial thing is a little ball of undifferentiated tissue (tissue who's function is undetermined and can generate any part of the plant) that after a couple months starts forming wee leaves and then roots.

Protocorm proliferation is a phenomena where the protocorm replicates itself like a stem cell forming what is called a callus in plant tissue culture. I can't explain why it happens as I don't know. Generally in tissue culture we make them with application of excess hormones.

Personally, I've seen this most often in Phalaenopsis flasks, but it can happen with any genus. Such structures will not survive outside the flask. However, they can be divided and continued in flask until they grow normally. This results in clones since the replicated protocorms from a clump are identical. This is generally how the only successful paph clones are made. The downside is since you're starting with seed, you might find later that you've propagated a plant that has dopey flowers.

Veggie Folk has reservations about this.


Veggie Folk comes from gobbledygookdecor. Check it out!

Spiderman, Spiderman!

Kids! Soup's on!

This nifty wasp, decked out in spiderman colors (her wings are metallic blue at the correct angle) isn't doing battle with that wolf spider who is three times her weight. That spider is paralyzed. He will be dinner for several youngin's. Blech. Creepy thought - getting eaten alive.

I don't know where exactly she was going with her prize, but he was certainly in a hurry. She was also quite flustered when she dropped the meal, but soon found it again and resumed the climb. Soon there will be little eggs destined to eat that spider.

By the way, I think what you are looking at is a Spider Wasp (Tachypompilus ferrugineus or related) with Rabid Wolf Spider prey.

Timeline: Momma Plant to Flowering Daughter

At the prompting of Swamprad, I've decided to chat a bit more about my orchid breeding attempts. I thought a good place to start might be a time line of the waiting game that is making new plants. This is just an estimated framework based on Phalaenopsis plants. I plan to expand on some details later. Please note this is based on growing plants at home in Maryland.

** Agonize over what combinations to make. 1 week.
* Pollinate flower. Drop pollen. Bark swear words. Get down on floor and look for it. Pollinate flower. 15 min.

* Wait. Wait some more... If a cross succeeds in making seeds, it will take on average 6-12 months to mature. In many genera, you can harvest the pod before it is fully mature, though, which actually makes handling the seed easier. If its going to fail miserably, it can do so at any time.

* Harvest the pod, sterilize, and sow. 1-2hrs.
* Wait. Germination times vary considerably. Typically I find phals will germinate in less than 2 months if they're going to do it. Lets say time on this is 1 month to 1 year.

* I usually let the protocorms gain a little size before transplanting, sometimes even with a little primordial leaf forming. They're not more than little green dots when they appear. Add 2-6 months.

* Transplant to new media, once or twice, continuing in flask for another 8 months to 2 years.


* Move seedlings to compots. Grow on 12 - 18 months.
* Pot out to individual pots. Grow on 6 - 24 months.












** At this point the plants are usually near blooming size or in some cases even first bloom size already. They might take a year or so to actually make the first few flowers. Adding all this up, it takes around 4 to 7 years to get the first couple flowers on your plants from the time a cross is made. Getting to mature size takes longer. In addition to plain time, how fast they get to bloom also depends on the genetics and environment/culture.