Hybridizing certainly takes great patience! Those of us without it appreciate those of you who have it. :-) I know sometime down the road you will show us any results of these crosses and look forward to seeing them.

May I ask if you give any special care for these seed pods as they are maturing on the plant? I had a more or less unintentional self pollination happen to a plant some time ago and the seed pod formed and grew for a month or so as I watched it with interest - and then suddenly one day it began to whither away and dried up. Was there something I should have done or not done or was that just a sign that it didn't really have seed in it? I've wondered ever since...

Most likely the pod you thought you had probably wasn't fertile. Many varieties produce false pods such as my Yukako. Or the pod might have gotten thrips, or your culture may have altered - such as a big change in your humidity. Or the stem might have gotten damaged, or bacteria or fungus infected it. Many possibilities.

I give them no special care other than when I remove spent flowers around them, I leave that stem and try to be careful not to damage it. The backs of the sepals I mark with a dot of colored acrylic paint so to not forget which flowers I pollinated. 6 months can be a long time so I usually try to do several pods at a time of the same cross so if I loose one or two I might still have one that makes it.

Ah, that probably explains it then as it was my Yukako the seed pod was on. Thanks for the interesting info!

Ah yes, Yukako and some other hybrids produce false seed pods regularly. They'll swell up, turn green, but produce no seed. We have no idea why they do that. You wouldn't want to use a chimera for producing seed anyway since you can't pass on the chimeric traits that way to the off spring. That aside, AV's that swell non-fertile seed pods like that may not themselves be fertile anyway, but I haven't tested it.

Hmmm, that's a very good observation, Irina and worth noting. You could certainly be right there.

Thank you ;-)). The more I learn, the more I forget...

Oh Irina, I have a feeling you don't forget a thing! All joking aside,,,you ARE very knowledgeable!!!! I love to read the exchanges between you and Hyn. And a lot of others on this forum. I learn quite a bit and sometimes it makes me remember I knew something from Memory Lane! Thanks everybody who does that for me!!!!! Rosie