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Byblis Study

Byblis smoking a.JPGByblis smoking b.JPGByblis filifolia 5.26.21a.JPGB.filifolia 7.21.21a.JPGHere is a Byblis filifolia I raised up after germinating the seed by smoke treatment. Thanks to John for the seed. I had extra fun starting the fire with an all natural bow drill set.
 
Very cool. Please, can you outline the steps you took?
 
This is so interesting - thanks for the new plant rabbit hole and congratulations on the beautiful sprout!
 
Very cool. Please, can you outline the steps you took?
Drilled an ember and lit the pictured pieces of dry punky (soft rotten) wood. Placed the seed sown cup in the rabbit like hole under the stone along with smoldering punk. Let smoke merrily for about 10 minutes.
 
This B. filifolia proved easy to grow. But the plant is very complicated to reproduce with its seed germination and pollination requirements. I see that, as is written, the flower of B. filifolia does not automatically release pollen onto its own stigma. Also, I read filifolia must be cross pollinated to make seed. I hand pollinated my one plant, so I don’t expect any. I know from experience that the easy to grow B. liniflora pollinates itself and makes good seed.
 
Self-pollination definitely won't produce anything; pollen isn't particularly difficult to acquire though if the plant has properly developed flowers, flicking the anthers with a toothpick will make it drop pollen on whatever's underneath the anthers (I usually use a fingernail or sheet of wax paper to collect and then use as a platform to scrape it off and move to a different flower). You can also store the pollen frozen so I'm told, to use later on a different clone if you only have room for one at a time. B. liniflora is the easiest to pollinate as it does on its own, aquatica will also very easily self-pollinate but requires manual pollinating of the flower most of the time. The rest all need to be crossed. I just got in a bunch of new forms of the species, hopefully will get them growing and set up a seed stock that I can start distributing from.
Also, it's a bit touchier as the resulting plants can be a bit lankier and less appealing to look at, but most of the Byblis species can be propagated via stem cuttings. The perennials take to this method best 9and thus far are also the ones that care the least about if roots are damaged in transplanting etc.).
 
Self-pollination definitely won't produce anything; pollen isn't particularly difficult to acquire though if the plant has properly developed flowers, flicking the anthers with a toothpick will make it drop pollen on whatever's underneath the anthers (I usually use a fingernail or sheet of wax paper to collect and then use as a platform to scrape it off and move to a different flower). You can also store the pollen frozen so I'm told, to use later on a different clone if you only have room for one at a time. B. liniflora is the easiest to pollinate as it does on its own, aquatica will also very easily self-pollinate but requires manual pollinating of the flower most of the time. The rest all need to be crossed. I just got in a bunch of new forms of the species, hopefully will get them growing and set up a seed stock that I can start distributing from.
Also, it's a bit touchier as the resulting plants can be a bit lankier and less appealing to look at, but most of the Byblis species can be propagated via stem cuttings. The perennials take to this method best 9and thus far are also the ones that care the least about if roots are damaged in transplanting etc.).
Thanks for the additional info. I’m toying with the idea of raising up a B. liniflora to cross with my one filifolia. But of more interest, I have seed of B. aquatica to smoke treat next.
Byblis graft 5.16.21b.JPG
Another experiment I did recently was graft an extra Byblis plant I had onto a non CP, to test the possible relation. Here is a photo: Byblis on African Violet (Saintpaulia ionantha). Google images and compare flowers of Byblis and African Violet and you’ll see the structure appears the same. However, my graft failed.
 
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Byblis flower garnish 8.26.21.JPG
More fun with my Byblis: Fallen pretty flower as a garnish on my spaghetti and meatballs:)
 
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