Thanks, Tracy.

Mr Ko's flower anatomy

Hope the image shows up. This is a great image detailing the anatomy of the inside of the flower in English. The instructions for pollinating are somewhere on the site, I know I have read them in the past. I will post a direct link if I am able to find it.

Tracy

P. S. kor107.jpg

kor106.jpg

Hi Tracy,

Thank you--this one is in English. I tried looking for the instructions too but cannot find it. So, yes, would be great if you are able to find direct link.

-bong

Wow I really had to dig to find the instructions! Didn't mean to send you on a goose chase bong! So the content is placed in an iframe this means I can't point to the source, so I will paste it here and name my source: http://www.adenium.com.tw

The images I added in the P. S. in my last post somewhat illustrate the process.

From Skilled Hand Nursery a/k/a Mr Ko's web site:

"Q22. Why does not the adenium grow seedpods easily?
Because the adenium cannot pollinate by itself, it does not grow seedpods easily.
It needs other flowers that can be on the same plant to help complete pollination.
Other than the help of insects, it really requires artificial pollinating.
To be able to perform the task of artificial pollinating,
one must fully understand the structures of the adenium in advance.

Pic-1 The adenium does not really presents its pistils and stamen, but they are hidden inside the throat.
1. Use a pair of scissors to cut off 2/3 of the flower’s throat.
While you are cutting, be careful do not cut off the five filaments because the stamen is inside of the filaments.
These five filaments will be in shapes of upside down funnels, and the pollen is inside the top of the filaments.
The color of the pollen is yellowish.
2. To retrieve the pollen, one can simply pull off the tip of two filaments.
As you pull off the two filaments to retrieve pollen, you will notice pollen is not much,
so you need to be very careful for manipulate. If you are not careful enough,
it is very likely that you will lose the pollen.
3. Gradually removing the rest of the filaments and pistils that are wrapped by the filaments will be revealed.
Place the pollens at the sticky area on top of the pistils.
4. When you have finished the above steps, your have successfully cross-pollinated the flower.
5. A good sign of proving that you have successfully conducted pollination,
the flower will drop after a couple of days. Then waiting for one or two more days,
the calyx should turn slightly red and will be getting bigger and bigger.
6. The best time to cross-pollinate is after adenium blooming for 2~3 days and it can be operated anytime."

Great! Next time they bloom again, I will try my hand.

You know, I was under the assumption that one had to take pollen from another plant, not from the same plant. So I was going to position one plant next to another, making the flowers touch, and place insects (that I have seen traveling all over my store-bought seedlings), and see if this would help. The insects do not seem to bother the seedlings--maybe they are carnivores.

Thanks again!

-bong

Correction: Seeds were store--bought, seedlings were raised by me from seeds.

His site is rather informative, I learned a ton about growing Adenium from seed by reading up there. He uses a cheap paint brush to pollinate his plants. He removes many of the hairs or fibers from the paint brush leaving only a few strands remaining to use for pollinating. From the pictures it looks to be so easy. This method looks much easier than the instructions that are laid out which sound like they would destroy the throat of the flower. He also documents some of the plants is using in his hybrid breeding program on the site.

Lots of luck, I hope you are able to produce some seed from that gorgeous plant.

Tracy