Here's Pachypodium mikea on the road to Salary, north of Ifaty, southeast Madagascar. You can see some seed pods on it.

Can anyone name either the bird top left or the rather shady looking character bottom right?
And here's a young one.

It's definitely Pachypodium mikea, trust me. Why do you think it's not?

Thanks Gary, any scent would be more than my wife could stand. How cold was the greenhouse that did in your saundersii? I think I'll put them in our conservatory that gets down to about 8C, she'll still moan but we may stay married. They should be OK at that temperature I would think.

My two young plants are in bud for the first time. They live on our south facing bedroom windowsill and are doing well, I like them a lot. My wife who has a very keen sense of smell detests perfumed flowers and to maintain domestic harmony I may need to move them or remove the buds. Rowley in his ha...

Interesting Nick. So how do you stop everything growing fungi and rotting off in the humid conditions used for seedlings? Do you sterilise your mix somehow before sowing the seeds? My mix has quite a bit of sand in it, and the vermiculite fairly quickly turns to mush, which presumably gives the roo...

Antun I plant my seeds in a purely mineral compost made of sand, grit, vermiculite, perlite and cat litter. I avoid anything organic to try to keep fungi at bay. It seems to work pretty well. They are kept permanently wet (with fertiliser and chinosol added) and very humid. However, I do note that ...

I think it's the same stuff. My car mechanic gave me some to clean up an oil spill on our drive and it looked and felt exactly the same as the cat litter. Also cleaned up the oil spill wonderfully.

Yes, you're right Terry, i didn't really look at the photo as it was sideways on, and I agree with you, leave it to do it's own thing. Some people advocate beheading saundersii to promote a thicker caudex but I've not tried it with my two youngish plants.

My local post office refuses to accept parcels containing plants to many EU countries, prohibited items they say. Nothing to do with brexit or customs but that many national postal services prohibit live plants in the mail. I now have the choice of lying about the contents or using another post offi...

As the branches grow the caudex sill become barer and less leafy. You could cut most of the branches off if you don't like them but they might just regrow.

It'll flower in a few years if you give it enough light, maybe sooner.