FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hello!

My Drosera Capensis has finally flowered and I just wanted to know how to detect if it's ready to collect seeds from it.
Also, do the flowers close when the sun goes down? I noticed the flower has closed just now.

Thank you for the replies!

The flower will close and pollinate itself. The ovary at the base of the flower will begin to swell and expand. It will take a few weeks to fully ripen, and the flower parts will slowly wither and dry out while this happens.
The pod will dry out, split, and the seeds will fall out with a gentle tap on the stalk. Some seeds may need a little help to come out, but you shouldn't have to do too much.
I would suggest that, when the pod begins to dry out, you remove it from the stalk and put it into a small bowl. That way, when the pod is ready, the seeds can be easily collected without any falling into the mother pot so you don't end up with too many Capes.

It's so exciting when your first plant flowers and you try to collect the seed. ChefDean said it the best. One of the hardest questions to find a concrete answer to is "When do I collect the seeds?" If you're dexterous enough, try to snip the buds when the plant starts terminating them. The bottom flower will be ripened entirely before the plant finishes flowering. You forget about it sometimes and then your pygmies have companion plants lol.

This is what the flower spike looks like when it's going to seed. (This isn't Capensis, it's Spatulata so the number of flowers and arrangement on the stalk will be different - but the general idea is the same.) You can see the swollen ovaries on the flowers on the left and the gradually emptier flowers going to the right as the seeds fall out. Incidentally, this spike is still attached to the plant. It's long enough for me bend it over and hold paper under it once or twice a day. I gently slap the spike (thrash) it against the paper to release the newly-ripe seeds. The disadvantage over other techniques is that I'm bound to lose some seeds between thrashings. On the other hand, it's dead easy. And if your fingers shake a bit, well that just helps with the thrashing!

If a flower stalk is cut from the plant, will the stalk still produce seeds?

It depends on how far along each individual pod has developed. On a Cape, you can have over 30 flowers on a single stalk.
Let's say you have 30 flowers, and you cut the stalk the day the last flower closed. You'll likely see that the last 7 or 8 flowers will not produce any seeds. 9 or 10 may produce a couple, 11 a couple more than 10, 12 a few more than 11, 13 a few more than 12, and so on until you get to about the 20th flower from the tip. 20 through 25 will probably be almost mature to fully mature, and should provide an almost full pod of seeds after they dry out. 26 through 30 should have ripened fully, with one or more pods having split open already.