Success!!!!!! After years and years of hand pollinating my Albuca Spiralis with no success and talking with fellow gardeners at Cypress Gardens who also were having no success I was determined to get me some seeds! I did an exhaustive search for information last fall and finally found a site with explicit instructions on how to do it. A bit skeptical because microwaving pollen was involved, when my Albuca started bloooming I followed the instructions and hand pollinated 3 flowers and one took!!!!!! You can bet I'll be hand pollinating more flowers as they come up. I am THRILLED to say the least since A. spiralis seeds are way hard to come by and the bulbs don't multiply.

Here are the instructions - http://www.pacificbulbsociety....

Two clones are often necessary to produce seeds but exceptions such as Albuca spiralis do exist. In the event that only a single clone exists, seeds can be made by microwaving the pollen for 15-20 seconds, then mixing with fresh pollen and applied twice a day to the pistil for several days. Because most species rarely produce offsets, growing from seed is the best way to increase stocks, and is usually the only way to obtain most species. All species, however, are easily raised from seed, sown at about the same time adult plants come into active growth. Fresh seed often germinate within a week of sowing, often with 100% germination. The seed is short lived however and probably needs to be started within six months for good germination.

Wow- I got one of these this winter, and tried to pollinate it myself, no luck.
Microwaving it? How did anyone figure this out!
15-20 seconds seems like a long time, but next year I will try. Does your plant go dormant after flowering?

We can here your exuberant enthusiasm, Anne! For those that want to look at the link, it won't work unless you take the period at the end off.

There was a recent discussion on this very subject on the PBS list, and I'm sure it's been talked about before, too. If you want to know more about it, go here, and search for "microwave pollen" or some such, in the archives.
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/...

Thanks for the heads up Rick, I fixed it.

Wow! I've never heard of microwaving pollen before, and would never have thought it possible.

Thanks for sharing this, Anne, and helping us all learn something new.

You're welcome! I now have 6 pods growing!

Xeramtheum said:You're welcome! I now have 6 pods growing!

Yay!
Maybe I can try this next winter on my 'Frizzle Sizzle'.

Mary do indeed! It's amazing how well it works.