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If one has the patience to grow these plants from seed, it's an ecomonical way to add some interesting new mexi-pings to one's collection.

Recently, i had a chance to again try my hand at germinating a few Pinguicula species from seed.

And though the following pics are in no way stellar, as the tiny starts look very similar to garden weeds first emerging from the ground in the spring, they do show the beginnings of little green pings that hopefully will one day be to grace me with either unique foliage or delicate flowers.

P. agnata - These had very good germination.


IMG_9731-1agnata.jpg


P. lilacina - Only three of these seeds germinated.

IMG_9735-2lilacina.jpg


P. orchidioides - One of the last species to germinate, but germination was decent with these. An interesting species, this one also has the synonym, P. stolonifera and is the only Pinguicula species to date that is known to propagate itself through the stolons that it produces.

IMG_9741-3orchidioides.jpg


P. moranensis (Huixteco) - Probably my favorite P. moranensis species, because of it's thick fleshy leaves.

IMG_9747-4moranensisHuixteco.jpg


P. moranensis - Another known location mexi-ping with very good germination.

IMG_9751-6moranensis.jpg


P. moranensis - This one has red rosettes, though not at this stage, and again there was good germination with this species.

IMG_9759-7redrosettes.jpg


P. sharpii - Only three of these seeds sprouted.

IMG_9763-8sharpii.jpg


All of these plants are currently in vermiculite, and once they are larger, they will be moved to an appropriate media mix, more suited to their personal preferences.

dvg
 
:O Neat!! Congrats!
 
Wow, so awesome! I was looking into buying some ping seeds myself.. How did you do yours? I see on wet vermiculite, did you always keep it soaking wet? what temps? any stratification needed? And how long roughly do they take to germinate? lol sorry, 100 questions.
 
Cool! I've never seen pics of ping seedlings before!

Thanks for sharing!
 
You are so fortunate! I've tried hand-pollinating the flowers and have never gotten one single seeds. I have torn petals off and everything imaginable to get the gametes together - nuthin'!
 
Thanks for the comments everyone!

Brie these species are are all mexi-pings so they don't need any stratification. They need some moisture to germinate and are grown in my basement under T12 fluorescent lights, and they germinate in about 7 to 10 day's time.

Jim, i can't take any credit for successfully pollinating Pinguicula flowers...these seeds were recently purchased from BCP.

dvg
 
Jim I will be pollinating a Mexican ping today or tomorrow and will try to get some step by step photos for you, my last attempt ended up with me getting 200+ seeds.
 
Jim I will be pollinating a Mexican ping today or tomorrow and will try to get some step by step photos for you, my last attempt ended up with me getting 200+ seeds.

Kewl! I also understand that I may have "barking up the wrong tree" with my attempts, due to genetic incompatibility.
 
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Very cool! Gotta try some Ping seeds now...
 
  • #10
To speed up the growth of these P. lilacina seedlings, i've opted to feed them with different types of the three species of springtails i grow in culture.

The bag of vermiculite that supplied the media that these seedlings are growing in has been outside for the last year or so, and upon closer inspection i had noticed that there were already local springtails, mites and tiny spiders cruising around in there and the seedlings had already managed to nab a few of these feral snacks.

IMG_9943-2.jpg


Here is a closer look at the middle and second largest seedling ping. It has managed to latch onto the most prey thus far and it will be interesting to see if this helps it out with a growth spurt.

IMG_9959-1.jpg


It already has captured one of the tropical springtails i released in the growing container. It's the white colored critter on the very right hand side leaf.

And because springtails love to eat fungi, they can take care of any mold that happens to arise in the container on or near the plants and subsequently become part of the plant's diet.

dvg
 
  • #11
Amazing babies and pictures!!
 
  • #12
I did this a while ago with P. launea seeds, but I only got one seed to germinate. What medium did you use? It looks like vermiticulite? :)
 
  • #13
Amazing babies and pictures!!

Thanks lil hokie!



I did this a while ago with P. launea seeds, but I only got one seed to germinate. What medium did you use? It looks like vermiticulite? :)



Yes, you are correct MH1, it is vermiculite that they are currently growing in.

dvg
 
  • #14
I've got some P. gigantae seeds. I reckon I'll have to try vermiculite. Paper towel didn't work so well...IDK. Jeff (very knowledgeable grower) suggested I try that. IDK what I did wrong but I haven't gotten a single sprout.
 
  • #15
I've got some P. gigantae seeds. I reckon I'll have to try vermiculite. Paper towel didn't work so well...IDK. Jeff (very knowledgeable grower) suggested I try that. IDK what I did wrong but I haven't gotten a single sprout.

SDCPs, your method was probably sound, but it might just be that the seeds you had were no longer viable.

Mexican butterwort seeds don't have the longest shelf life, and i've had varying germination results with purchased seeds ranging from very good to zero.

If i get shut out on a mexi-ping seed type, i just chalk it up to the seed being either infertile or too old, but other factors such as media pH, and temperature differences between night and day could possibly play important factors for increasing germination rates with these seeds.

dvg
 
  • #16
dvg,

Where do you get your seed? I'm very interested in growing P. gigantea, and that's about it or the mexican pings. It does well in strong light outside here...or well enough to slowly keep getting bigger at least. Seeds of this species seem difficult to obtain. I at least need to get a few clones of the plant I guess so I can get my own seed :boogie:

Twas what I was originally trying to do, but alas I still only have one.
 
  • #17
Bonjour

on all my 2 seeds packet ,you had no germination ?

have you try leaves cutting , for me this method is more interessant than seeds ( no hybridation risk ) and less random.

jeff
 
  • #18
Some of these Mexican Pinguicula seedlings are really growing along faster than i expected.

P. lilacina is making the biggest gains thus far and is already taking Drosophila melanogaster flightless fruit flies for food as well as tropical springtails.

IMG_0221-Plilacina.jpg


Not sure if these mexi-ping seedlings are being overfed at this point in time, but i'll watch them closely and let them tell me how much they're liking all of the food they've been getting.

P. sharpii is putting out the next largest set of leaves/traps.

IMG_0224-Psharpii.jpg


P. agnata is coming along quite nicely as well, with very good germination rates from that seed batch.

IMG_0230-Pagnata.jpg


And P. moranensis, the red rosetted form, even though it's still not yet showing any of that red pigmentation, isn't doing too badly either.

IMG_0236Pmoranensis-red-rosettes.jpg


dvg
 
  • #19
Bonjour

on all my 2 seeds packet ,you had no germination ?

have you try leaves cutting , for me this method is more interessant than seeds ( no hybridation risk ) and less random.

jeff

Correct, I have no germination.

Leaf pullings work very well. I love seeds, however, so I need to get genetically different plants to get the seed from. No worries about hybridization. I only have P. gigantea now. No other mexican pinguicula.
 
  • #20
Very nice. I had read of feeding tiny seedlings such as these by sparying with a solution of crushed dried bloodworms. Haven't tried that yet, though.


chasing_smiley.gif
 
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