Last season I had such success in setting seed in Caladiums that I had hundreds of tiny plantlets started. The female parts are receptive before the inflorescence opens, so either you need fresh pollen available on another inflorescence at that time, or you need to save pollen for use at the right time.

How did I know when to pollinate? By watching the inflorescences develop, I noticed that a day or two before it opened, the spathe expanded or "poofed" a little, and the color of the spathe also lightened up a little. That is when, in the morning, I cut open the spathe around the pistils and put pollen on them. If you wait until the spathe opens, you are too late.

You know it has worked when you see whitish berries developing. The pistil area swells noticeably until you can see it as a cluster of berries tightly squeezed together. You need to put a little stocking bag over them when they are near ripening because they all fall off and you can lose them. The seeds within the berries are very small, smaller than pinhead size, and are a job to clean, but it can be done.

The following link has detailed information on breeding Caladiums; scroll down to near the bottom of the page where you will find a four part series on this.

Hope this helps,
LariAnn Garner
Aroidia Research
http://aroidiaresearch.org

Here is a link that might be useful: Caladium breeding (near bottom of page)

Hello LariAnn! Thank you very, very much for your help! I really appreciated.

Now i have another question. So you say that i can know if the pollinization was succesful if:
"You know it has worked when you see whitish berries developing. The pistil area swells noticeably until you can see it as a cluster of berries tightly squeezed together."

But, if the pistil looks brownish, like this:
{{gwi:384964}}

Basicly this has been my problem, that all pistils become brownish and some of them fade, but others keep on swelling but with a brownish coloration. The one pictured above has keep on swelling and it is like 2 weeks old. It has not faded and keps on growing, but iti s brown. Is this normal, or correct?

Thank youvery much, once again,
Jorge Joel...
Emilia's Garden

so... any success from that "brown and growing" pistils? did they bore seeds?... I am too trying my hand at Caladium pollination... any reply will be quiet helpful for me to do so in a successful manner.

Cheers~

Izhar

Hello Izhar! Sorry, but i did not have success with that Caladium, nor had with any, so I stopped my tries many years ago. I never developed a method to be successful. So I do not have any hints that can help you. Maybe other of the forum's guys can have good advice for you and for me;0)

Cheers!

LariAnn's advice is dead-on accurate but this info with photos written primarily by aroid expert Julius Boos may help.

Here is a link that might be useful: Aroid pollination