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Cross pollinate

Wesley

God must have an interesting sense of humor
Is it possible to cros pollinate an adelea and a spathulata?
 
Hi Wesley,

This is not an area of experience for me, but I believe the chromosone numbers must match in order to make a fertile cross. In the case of D. spatulata the numbers are N = 20, 40,60,80 depending on variety. D. adelae has N = 28, so this does not seem a likely possibility.

A list of hybrids is included at the end of the excellent article by Ivan Snyder in the ICPN:

http://www.carnivorousplants.org/cpn/samples/Cult291Colch.htm
 
Tamlin's right, with different chromosome numbers, species cannot interbreed. That's the main reason there are so few sundew hybrids.
 
Ok thanks.
 
Is this true only for making FERTILE hybrids? What about creating nonfertile cultivars of drosera which can only be passed along via vegatative propagation? Is it possible at all as an experiment or just not possible at all?
 
It is possible to cross any of the species, but expect frequent abortions. Frequently the pollen will be incompatible. Other times the developing embryo will be defective. I have even heard of crosses between Drosera and Dionaea, but the seed was always defective. I have done little in the way of experimenting along these lines.

Ivan Snyder came up with a very interesting formulae. If just 10 species of Drosera are capable of producing fertile hybrids, the breakdown is as follows to calculate the possible numbers of hybrids 10! = 10x9x8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1 divided by 1/2 (since half would be reciprocal hydirds, i.e. identical in form) This works out to be around a million and a half possibilities.
 
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