Quite loverly MJ!

Drew it's got another bloom coming along also, should be open soon. Any hints on collecting pollen ?

Is this a climber mj?

Evan, yes it's a climber. I've been toying with putting it in the ground, but then I would have to cover it. As it is right now I can still squeeze it into the greenhouse.
IF I can get the renovations I want to do on the greenhouse it will give me more room for some of these big guys.

Positive thinking, Not IF...WHEN!!

I'm getting kind of tired looking all over the place to figure out growth habit, so I'm thinking we could use a some new data points for Philos. Maybe, Arborescent (Tree Philos), Self-heading, Vining and Semi-vining. Maybe Scandent and Repent as well.

Philodendron 'Orange Marmalade'

Gasp! That's is stunning! If it's like the caladiums, look for stringy fungus like structures early in the morning. It totally disappears within a few hours so you have to be fast and the pollen shows up a few days before the base of the flower is receptive. You can save the pollen in sterile water until you're ready to use it.

eclayne said:Positive thinking, Not IF...WHEN!!


Evan I sure appreciate your faith in the greenhouse reno. And until 2 weeks ago I was sure we'd get it done. A what was thought to be a minor repair in one of the bathrooms tho as now turned into a full blown renovation. Not in the plants and most certainly will take a much larger chunk of the budget than the greenhouse changes would have.

I'm getting kind of tired looking all over the place to figure out growth habit, so I'm thinking we could use a some new data points for Philos. Maybe, Arborescent (Tree Philos), Self-heading, Vining and Semi-vining. Maybe Scandent and Repent as well.



Philodendron 'Orange Marmalade'

Mj, the pollen on philos comes out in the evening, sometimes late in the evening, of the second day the bloom is fully open. The bloom will close over the pollen shortly after so you have to be snappy if you want to collect it. My mecos (philos like P. bipinnatifidum, the tree types) put out pollen anytime from 8 PM to 11 PM, depending upon the species/hybrid. Others put out pollen around the same time range.

Some philo species seem not to produce pollen, which vexes me because how can a plant be a species and not produce pollen? My P. tweedianum doesn't produce pollen, is a species, yet has accepted pollen from other species/hybrids and set viable seed!

So in the hybridization game, you can never be sure!

As for growth habit categories, that's a sticky wicket. I see broad categories, like "tree type", vining, recumbent (creeping), and self-heading. Funny thing is sometimes a viner becomes recumbent when mature (example - Bob See hybrid, vines when young but I have a mature piece in a pot, plant is blooming and growing recumbent, not vining). Examples of true recumbents are P. gloriosum and P. callosum. Self-headers is a tricky category because, perhaps, they should be called "short-stemmed" - when I think of a self-heading plant, I think of something like Sempervivums, Agaves, or other rosette-type plants. As far as I know, there are no true rosette-type philos, but some come close. If they are short-stemmed, that means the internodes (spaces between leaves) are short, but still present. Eventually, they will get a length of stem but you can repot them to restore the self-header look.

Thanks LariAnn. That's very useful information. Some greater flexibility in data fields will be necessary to accommodate the variable habits you note. If scandent and recumbent were both checked for Bob See, perhaps an "Other" check box which opens up a write box would work? A short explanation could go there. The write box should be useful to explain how tree types can vine as well.

We can have a (very) short definition of a data point, a scroll-over, that would be useful for "Short-stemmed". Something like Short internodes. Self heading, Self-header or something to that effect?