Conophytum regale

[Ali Baba]

This bunch of seedlings has finally decided that this year is time to flower

[daniel82]

Very nice, I love that colour. How big are they?

[Ali Baba]

That’s a 5cm pot


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[colser]

Love the picture, thanks for sharing

[ChrisR]

Nice.....be sure to cross pollinate those flowers to continue the process. Even good cono seed is getting difficult to get and these are rare plants in habitat.

[Ali Baba]

I’ve tickled the flowers with a dried leaf of tillandsia usneoides (easier to find in my greenhouse than a cats whisker) so hopefully will get good seed set. I am not sure whether I should isolate the plants to prevent accidental hybrids as there don’t seem to be any pollinators about..?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Terry S.]

I bet that there are pollinators around in the form of western flower thrips. These little beasts have made it necessary to physically isolate cono plants if you want to guarantee good seed. However, C. regale is one of the last species to flower, so I suspect that there are not many other conos in your greenhouse now that could lead to hybrids.
Incidentally although C. regale is rare as Chris indicates, and confined to just one quartz ridge, there are two distinct forms in cultivation. The best is SB793 which is very compact and then there is SH84.1 which has larger heads together with longer internodes such that the clumps are much looser. I wonder if there are sub-populations?

[Ali Baba]

Thanks Terry, I hadnt considered WFT as pollinators...I guess I wont be donating the seed to the MSG seedlist then! I do have a couple of night flowering conos still going as well as a nice yellow flowered one so there must be the off-chance of hybrids. I shall be more careful next year. My plants are from Mesa Garden seed as SH793

[ChrisR]

I think if you pollinate the flowers yourself you'll get good seed. I've had a quite a bit of WFT over the years but given away hundreds of Conophytum capsules to friends and the MSG during that time that I've carefully produced myself. I keep track of most of it through seedlings returned and know of only two cases where obvious hybrids occurred.

[Ali Baba]

Thanks Chris that’s encouraging [emoji3]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk