FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

to pollinate a sarra flower is not hard its just a matter of timing , your flower must be mature and fully developed .
while the flower is maturing the pollen is also, building up and maturing in the Anther's .
the pollen when mature will drop in to the lower chamber called the stile chamber or umbrella chamber ,its a extension of the stile in a sarra flower, shaped like a umbrella to catch the pollen .
this part of the flower is cover by some petals to protect the pollen and keep it in that chamber for pollination, these can be lifted and check in side to see if any pollen has gathered in the chamber , once the pollen has fallen in to the chamber the flower is ready to be pollinated , this process can take several attempts over a week period , I usually do my process twice a day for about 4 to 5 days just to be sure ,as its difficult to know when the stigma is receptive.
Once I see that pollen has gathered in the lower chamber , I get my very small art brush , lift the petals up and move the brush around in the pollen, get it mainly on the tip of the brush if possible , ,it sticks to the brush very easily ,can be seen in the pic's below !!, then you put the brush up to the stigma and apply it to the stigma, where the brush has the most pollen on it,, you must do that process to all the stigma in the chamber there are 5 of them, the pollen MUST be dry and fresh,the flower must not be wet at all !! or this process will not work !! each time you got to pollinate you can tap some more pollen out of the anthers , but usually there is heaps in the lower chamber all ready .
This process is self pollination to cross pollinate is the same process but just using the pollen from one flower and applying it to the other flowers stigma, then you must write down, what pollen went to what flower or you will not know or remember. , And remember if you have pollen on your brush and dont wash it off and pollinate another flower it could be a triple cross !! so be careful , best to use several brushes and put a tag on each one with the information on it , or it will get mixed up very very quickly , and you will not know which brush pollinated what flower !!been there done that

the link below shows you the flower parts and names so you can relate to my description
if you have any questions or you dont understand any part of this just let me know ,put it down as easy as I could with out getting to much writing down and confusing the process


http://www.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl= ... CBoQ9QEwAA

cool!!great pollination guide thanks thanks!!.i dont even know b4 that Sarr had a pollen

Great guide and nice flower!

what happens if only 3 of the 5 stigmas don't get pollinated?

Great work John - very easy to understand. And congratulations on a lovely flower on your purpurea too!

kaepora gaebora wrote:Great guide and nice flower!

what happens if only 3 of the 5 stigmas don't get pollinated?

Hi usually the stigma that was not pollinated will not produce any seed in that pod chamber or ovary ,as the Ovules in that part will just go brown and not seed up.
hope that is easy to understand
J

Hi John,
wow good job! Nice flower there.I'm glad that we have people like you! Thanks.
However, now I will show two pics of two of mine sarras. I will pollinate some months ago for firs time. How to understand if they are pollinaited with success? Will they have seeds?

Sarracenia leucophylla


Sarracenia psittacina

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I looks very likely that it is pollinated ,it certainly look swollen enough , but seen them before looking like this to find no seed ,see how it looks in another few weeks if swollen more it will have seed if no change may be not !!
j

Amazing guide John! You put so much effort into the guides and answers you provide on this forum! Ill certainly check back next time I need to do some pollinating!

HarrisAz wrote:i dont even know b4 that Sarr had a pollen

I swear all flowers have pollen?

Great work John! This is now a sticky.

-Hayden,told ya b4 im a total noob at planting b4 i join this site.since i join this site,i have success rate on growing,germinating,propagating other plants for instance Watermelon.remember my first post in FTC? xD
this site understands me on plants.thats what the cool thing is...not just CP

Matt wrote:Great work John! This is now a sticky.

Woohoo a sticky thanks Matt

thanks for this post those sarras im gettin a gonna have to get flowers so i can try pollenating em

thanks
daniel

Um... sorry to be an idiot who doesn't know anything here (just joking) but whereabouts is the stigma in a sarr flower?

Darkrai283 wrote:whereabouts is the stigma in a sarr flower?

It's the spike that you can see on the upward slanting white part of the flower in this photo:

And, of course, it's the part that John is putting the pollen on (pollen always goes on a receptive stigma) in this photo:

Darkrai283 wrote:Um... sorry to be an idiot who doesn't know anything here (just joking) but whereabouts is the stigma in a sarr flower?

Ok Sorry I did not answer , have been away all week , thanks Matt for picking that question up cheers mate