:) Hi, we are posting at the same time. I really enjoy passing on this kind of info. Once you get a handle on how the flowers "work" it opens up a whole new way to study and enjoy your plants. Next stop: hybridizing your longicaulis with another aeschynanthus!

The AGGS seed fund will greatly appreciate your contribution. It is fun to see ones name on the list of seed fund contributors, that is published in the Gloxinian. Save a few seeds to grow on yourself, just to learn that phase of growing, and possibly to see if the seedlings are identical to the parent.

Jon

LOL. Look around and I realize I have no other Aeshynanthus...

So how do you go about finding out what hybrids have already been done successfully?

About hybrids: There is the aeschynanthus register that AGGS publishes and sells through the publications chariman, Pat Richards. It can be found on the AGGS web site. The various registers are very inexpensive. I don't know how up-to-date the aeschynanthus register is. Each register is published after several years of work and they don't get redone until other registers have been updated so it can take years. But, I don't know of much work being done with aeschynanthus in the last few decades. I can only think of a few longicaulis hybrids--'Kalamantin', 'Mandalay', 'Black Pagoda', and longicaulis x micranthus. I don't know what the other parent was in the other crosses.

But, whatever has been done, each seedling has the potential to be different, new and unique, even if the cross has been done. Some of the older hybrids also have the tendency to get lost, so I see no problem with redoing old crosses. I know one thing--they weren't done with the clone of longicaulis that you are growing. You have the new and improved Kew clone, that has good purple color on the leaf backs, and is somewhat more compact.

Also, there is a big and enthusiastic gesneriad growing population out there that you could ask for pollen from. I bet that you could get some pollen sent to you, or you might get some pollen from the DC chapter or the Smithsonian.

I can think of lots of potential parents that would be well worth experimenting with--albidus, evardii, boschianus, lanceolatus, batakiorum, 'Fire Works', gracilis, garrettii, and the list goes on and on.

Jon

Thanks Jon. I just ordered the register. You do a really good job of this enabling thing.

I think one of these days I will just have to make the local society meeting....

Just a quick update. Sometime last week, one of the seed pods opened and I had fluff all over the place:

so I have taken precautions for the rest of the pods ;-)

WOW! Neat! First Aeshynanthus ever with white blooms!!! :-)

Linda

Isn't it fun. I think aeschynanthus are the only gesneriad to have those hairs on the seeds. In your photo you can see the hairs and a little dot. That dot is the seed and the hairs help it to float away and then land on the mossy branch of a tree to germinate.

The seeds are easy to germinate. You just take a tiny pinch and put it on top of some very moist seed starting mix and then gently tap it down or mist it so that it gets contact with the surface. Up will come seedlings with really tiny leaves. I understand that various species of aeschynanthus have different patterns of hairs on the seeds. Some have a hair on each side of the seed, some on one side, and I think some have more than one hair on a side. I will have to grow on more from seed to see this.

I get a kick out of all they ways we gesneriad people enjoy our plants. Me and my friend Alan, who lives nearby, both grow sinningia species and we talk about the variations in the tubers! "OH wow, look, S. hatschbachii has a beet colored tuber". I know a woman, a botanist who studies the hairs on gesneriad leaves and stems. :)

Jon

LOL. I was just potting up some Sinningia hybrid seedlings - I think these are compact ones? - and one of them has bright red teardrop tubers - 'Tampa Bay Beauty' x self. Looks very different from the others.

And then there was the little pot of Achimenes seedlings that had died back, but there were tiny white scaley things in the soil that look like they might do something.

...and I noticed that the longicaulis fluff is very different from the evrardii fluff on GRW and was wondering if the others are different.

Gessie seedlings and old time radio - what a great way to spend Sunday evening.