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Pinguicula Possibilities

KNepenthe

KNepenthe

So this here is my first seed pod of what I believe to be P. planifolia X 'Pirouette' but I have to say despite my hopes I am a bit skeptical. I was under the impression that P. planifolia could not hybridize with the Mexican pings and if it was to self pollinate it needed pollen from a different flower on the plant. It was the only P. planifolia bloom in the greenhouse and I did very carefully hand pollinate it with the P. 'Pirouette' so as to avoid any self pollination. To be honest when I did this I didn't have any hope of it actually producing a seed pod I was just hoping for a miracle :p So we will see what sprouts later!

Feel free to put your two cents in if you have more experience pollinating P. planifolia! :)

 
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It would be strange if this pollination was successful. I too was under the impression that the Mexican species were too genetically different to successfully hybridize with the North American or European species. I've had several Pinguicula species apparently self pollinate, P.laueana being the most prone to this. I've also inadvertently self pollinated Pinguicula flowers while trying to extract pollen. Keep us updated on the progress of the seedlings.
 
Well... today I got my first sprouts! About 15 so far but I'm sure there will be more to follow in the next few days. Glad to know, if it was hybridized, that the seed is viable. Although I have read the seed from P. planifolia can produce some weak seedlings that croak easily. Hopefully in a few weeks I will have something to photograph. :)
 
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Well it may be a while until I can get some decent pictures but seeing as it has been a month since my last post I can safely say the seedlings do not seem 'weak'. I have about 30 very small sprouts and they are all growing slowly but steadily. The only strange thing I have observed is the drastic difference in germination that is dependent on temperature. I split up the seeds into two different pots so that I didn't put all my eggs in one basket. I placed one pot out in my greenhouse (50-85 degrees) and one inside in my terrarium (roughly 75 degrees consistently). Same soil mix, same water, same number of seeds. The pot in the greenhouse has sprouted just about every seed I put in it but the one in the terrarium is completely barren. Not a single sprout. I will probably post pictures in about a month if everything continues on well :)
 
Reading the ping crosses thread reminded me of this. How are the seedlings coming along? It seems you have a one of a kind cross on your hands! :)
 
My guess is, you most likely have a nice group of P. planifolia seedlings. Perhaps it became self-pollinated when you were working to cross-pollinate it. Though, if you did manage to produce viable seed from such a crossing, it would be very interesting indeed. I've never heard of anyone even succeeding with crosses between the various homophyllous southern USA species, let alone a cross like you're attempting. I, myself, have attempted, on many different occasions, to create such crossings.

The only semi-unusual crossing I was ever successful with, was self-pollinating a P. 'Sethos' plant. I obtained one initial plant of this cultivar, propagated more than a dozen additional plants via leaf-pullings, then proceeded to attempt crossing them with themselves. It was the only Mexican derived Pinguicula I had, at that time. Most pollination attempts were unsuccessful, with the flowers and stalks withering, soon after their attempted pollination. Several times, pollination seemed to be producing seed pods, but then those pods would eventually shrivel, too. And others would produce seed, but it would either fail to germinate, or obviously be seed husks, empty of any actual seed. But, finally, after dozens of promising attempts, at last I had seed that actually germinated - I was very pleasantly surprised. They produced about fifty - sixty seedlings or more, and it being my first, ever, having Mexican Pinguicula seedlings, I planted them out into a shoebox sized tray, half-filled with 100% peat moss. I kept them watered and gave them good light, but a year later they were each no larger than a nickel. So, I decided to experiment, and I made up a very weak solution of Peters 20-20-20 soluble fertilizer with trace minerals (~ 80 ppm), and gave them a light spritz with it. Soon, they began to grow rapidly, and in a few weeks, spritzing them lightly with the fertilizer solution, every few days, they were crowding each other in the same shoebox sized tray, and one was even sending up a flower bud.

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How are your seedlings doing? Can you share a pic?
 
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I am definitely going to try out the weak fertilizer on them. They are growing painfully slow!!

 
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Nice looking little plantlets. I'm sure anxious to see them mature and bloom - hopefully they will exhibit traits other than simply P. planifolia, but even if they turn out to be just P. planifolia, even that would be a very nice thing.
 
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This is exciting, definately keep us updated! This doesn't seem that far fetched either. They said the Ancephya and Brachyceras subgenera of Nymphaea couldn't be hybridized, then William Philips crossed the two and proved everyone wrong (DNA testing was even done for verification). I wonder if the offspring will be fertile if they prove to be hybrids? Would be great if they were, imagine the possibilities of adding such a distantly related plant's genetics to the gene pool!

I'm curious if some of the seedlings are pure planifolia and some are hybrids? Or is it typical for seedlings of planifolia to show so much variation in form and color? It seems that there are some seedlings that look like typical planifolia, while others are greener with more obtuse leaf ends. Interesting to say the least... Is there any way you can get us a higher resolution image of the plants? Perhaps a macro shot of a few examples of the seedlings?

Joseph are Pinguicula flowers typically self-sterile, or is that just a trait of P.'Sethos'?
 
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Many of the Mexican/equitorial Pinguicula can be selfed, somewhat easily crossed with many other related species or hybrids, and like P. pumila, and P. lusitanica, some of the smallest and least common to cultivation species of Mexican/equitorial Pinguicula are self-fertile and automatically self-pollinating, similar to those two. I haven't heard of any other attempts to produce an F2 generation of P. 'Sethos', other than my own. I plan to attempt a repeat of my P. 'Sethos' selfing, as soon as practical, since it was such a rewarding experience and I'm interested in seeing what happens. With P. planifolia, I once had a seedpod produced by self-pollination that was inadvertently broken from the plant, before the seed had finished ripening. Not to let it go to waste, I carefully opened the pod to reveal partially developed seed, that was literally green in color. I planted them as if they were normal seed. They promptly germinated and grew into normal plants.

Some plants have the ability to produce seed with embryos that are simply clones of the mother plant, the stimulus of being pollinated with closely related pollen, or sometimes basically anything (though that pollen doesn't actually fertilize the ovules of the mother plant).
 
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What was the end result with this hybrid?
 
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But if you quote them or [MENTION=10144]KNepenthe[/MENTION] them, if they have not changed their settings to not get notifications they should receive an email. =)
 
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