FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

One of my spiralis plants is sending out another flower stalk that looks like it's nice and loaded with flower buds.
For some reason though, spiralis has never wanted to give me seeds. I usually end up with ten or twenty seeds from a whole spent flower stalk, and I'd like a bit more than that...

The plants are grown under a ViparSpectra 300w blurple light in a tray setup, peat/sand mixture with live sphag on top. I do reduce the photoperiod in the winter, right now they're getting around 8.5 hours of light.

Has anyone had experience with spiralis before that could provide tips on getting more seed from this round of flowers? Or general advice on getting stubborn species to set seed?

Thanks, mo_carnivore

D. spiralis generally doesn't self very well. Manual pollination will help, but nothing can replace cross-pollination with a genetically different plant.

Mmmm I can't help you.... but my gosh does that plant look good.

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nimbulan wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 10:55 pm D. spiralis generally doesn't self very well. Manual pollination will help, but nothing can replace cross-pollination with a genetically different plant.

Hmm yeah I was wondering if that was the case. That's a little unfortunate. Just out of curiosity, how easy have you found other South American sundews to self seed? For me most do pretty well, but chimaera can be a challenge, and graomogolensis seems just about impossible.

mo_carnivore wrote:Hmm yeah I was wondering if that was the case. That's a little unfortunate. Just out of curiosity, how easy have you found other South American sundews to self seed? For me most do pretty well, but chimaera can be a challenge, and graomogolensis seems just about impossible.

I haven't flowered many. D. riparia has never set seed for me (but the plants always look terrible so that may have something to do with it.) D. tomentosa and tentaculata have been no problem. D. graomogolensis I haven't flowered, but it's known to be self-incompatible, and unfortunately D. schwackei seems to be as well.