FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Looks like tomorrow is the first day of pollination! All tips are appreciated, as it has taken a year of daily work to get to this point and I'm a bit terrified to muck it up. By minor miracle it looks like the N. spathulata x petiolata male (right) is starting to open ~12 hours before the female N. (lowii x veitchii) x boschiana (left), which is about perfect. It definitely lost one possible flower bud during shipping but the rest still look good. I also have some stored N. spathulata x spectabilis pollen from a flytrapcare user I am going to try on half the flower.


One of the lightening jewel orchids in my paludarium has also started to open flowers so it may get a similar treatment at the same time.


The incubator finally has humidity control and light, which makes things easier. We are testing our first nepenthes seeds on agar at the moment too, so fingers crossed.

Fingers crossed for you. I’m excited and nervous for you because one day I hope to be in the same predicament.

Sarracenia2004 wrote: ↑Sun Oct 17, 2021 4:10 pm Well, if it is successful, will you share seeds with the forum?

Not to speak for @BugBiters, but Nepenthes seeds have an extremely short shelf life and are oftentimes very rare and expensive, which is why the seed bank doesn't have them 99.9 percent of the time.

MaxVft wrote:

Sarracenia2004 wrote: ↑Sun Oct 17, 2021 4:10 pm Well, if it is successful, will you share seeds with the forum?

Not to speak for @BugBiters, but Nepenthes seeds have an extremely short shelf life and are oftentimes very rare and expensive, which is why the seed bank doesn't have them 99.9 percent of the time.

Yeah, sending them through the seed bank would take so long it would influence their viability BUT if I do have good luck I am planning on sending at least one seed pod out as a separate giveaway.

She's teasing me! It looks like the whole flower stalk is starting to loosen up around the same time, so it's a good thing I have some stored pollen ready to go too.


So far I have harvested one anther off the male (first pic, from yesterday) and this morning there are three more open but not quite ripe-looking (second pic, from today).

Can't wait for the results (for those of you who don't know, I supplied the pollen).

_-SphagnumFromHell-_ wrote: ↑Fri Oct 22, 2021 11:05 pm Can't wait for the results (for those of you who don't know, I supplied the pollen).

Things are going really really well I have great progress pics to upload but it will probably be next week once we're back in town again.

This is a lot of work, y'all! Stick your plants somewhere you wont break your back trying to reach around them every day for weeks

Those are some very exciting combinations! Is that LVB’s red or yellow form?

Nocturne wrote: ↑Thu Oct 28, 2021 10:01 pm Those are some very exciting combinations! Is that LVB’s red or yellow form?

I'll admit I'm a little fuzzy on how many clones are running around from this grex, but this is definitely at least a red form. My cutting has only produced red/white peristomes but the mother plant it came from has flushed all the way to having a deep pink body.





I got some interesting close-ups of the developing pollen - in the first photo there is an unripe flower on top, and a ripe one on the bottom. In the second, there are two fluffy, ripe flowers on top with one that is (I presume) starting to go bad.



Some opening female flowers directly post-pollination last week.



And this is how the female flower looked right before we left for a weekend trip - almost all the way opened. I have a lot more pollinating to do again now!

Time for a long-overdue update. Things have been trucking along, but kind of middlingly. There are obvious swollen seed pods and much smaller, unfertilized ones, which is great. There are definitely fertilized-seeming pods from both sets of pollen. There has been some blackening of two different types on the stalk, though. The first is just some sooty mold from the pollen guard rubbing (towards the middle/lower of the flower), and seems not to have affected anything. There is some more concerning blackening towards the top of the flower, but it also halted suddenly after starting and seems not to have progressed. I am hoping it is just the few flowers at the top I didn't get to fertilize aborting. I have a couple more months of waiting but I am cautiously optimistic.

Looking forward to an update when there's seeds...Its looking good so far.

I was a little pessimistic last update, but they've made it! The first few at the bottom are all the way browned up and just barely starting to crack at the tips, although most of the stalk is still a bit green. Most look nice and plump, and the few unfertilized pods are really clearly shrunken. I will try to get some good close-ups before I harvest - which should be within ~2 weeks now.

Question: in your give away your winners get one pod. About how many seeds do you think are in a pod?

Ewreck wrote: ↑Thu Feb 03, 2022 3:46 pm Question: in your give away your winners get one pod. About how many seeds do you think are in a pod?

20-50, although sometimes there are a few infertile seeds mixed into otherwise good pods.

Happy seeds


You can see that the bottom two rows are much closer to being fully cooked - they were done slightly earlier with a different set of pollen than the rest. I really lathered that set since it was done with stored pollen, and I'm glad I did, since they turned out nice and plump but still a bit smaller than all the pods done with fresh pollen. The fuzz is just from me scraping a bug off with a q-tip.