New additions to my Forby Family.

[youngie]

Hi Julie,

You may find these interesting.
This is a Female Flower

[youngie]

And this is a Male flower

[youngie]

And last but not least the Fruits.

[Maria J]

Thanks John, I can now check mine next time it flowers to know which it is I have!! ;-)

[CactusChris]

Hi Julie,
I like the one in the link blah/1659.jpg - if you ever get some and propagate it let me know!
What I did not see was anyone warning you that when the seeds are ready they are forcibly expelled from the capsule - all over the show unless you set up a bag or something to catch them. Taking the pod off early will not work I'm told - they have to ripen on the plant.

Best regards

Chris

[David_L]

Hi Julie

Everyone else has got their E. obesa picture in and mine was getting jealous so I thought we'd better let her have her 5 minutes of fame. She's been with me quite a while, around 15 years or more I guess and is getting quite pointy at the top.

[Roy]

Hi Chris,
I well remember in my youth running around Gran Canaria wondering why I could only find unripe seed pods or empty shells! :-))))))

[Julie]

OK then, Youngie he is.

He amazingly arrived with two stamens still intact, and so he got busy with his harem straight away. This morning he had at least three new stamens which had popped up overnight. He was obviously happy to have some soli, water and light, and got busy with the growing.

Amazing how fast the male bits can appear from the cup. Girl bits take a week or so to grow to the full three stigmas.

Actually I had a horrible dream last night where I woke up and looked at him and he had gone soft and his pointy top had collapsed flat. I got up and checked on him, knowing he was fine but wanting to put my mind at rest - and there he was, fine and happy with a couple of new stamens.

If only all plants were as obvious as those pictured. Girlie and Mama are obvious, and so is Youngie. My old girl has given me some grief in deciding her sex. She will have a spate of girl flowers and then a spate of boy-looking flowers. They are cups which most have nothing sticking out, and the odd couple will develop boy-looking stamens, looking exactly like the stamens on Youngie, only they are much more delicate and prone to fall off when touched with a paintbrush. They won't fertilise Girlie so that made me decide for sure that she is a she. Also the male cups are wider, and the fake boy stamens will come from a single point like the girl stigmas do. And there are never more than three, where I have seen photos of boy flowers with more than three and they don't come fron a single point.

She's a tomboy. Let's see if her buds give girl flowers which are fertilisable. I've watered her again to see if she will grow them.

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Roy, I saw a pic of lollipop seedlings in a trifle bowl, they are soooo sweeet! Glad to hear that the stalk fattens up, though.. I might have tried to bury it.

The fruits in the pic are not at red-alert pop warning yet - they get brown and the furrows between the seeds deepens and one of mama's (the pregnant one I got in a garden centre and held a tissue over all the way home in case she popped) developed a split at the centre of the furrow.

I also read that they take 10 days from fertilisation to popping, mine were more like a month! That could have been due to it being so late in the year.

Mama had two pods on the same stalk which each had only one seed, and grew an odd shape. The stalk went yellow and fell off of it's own accord, and I have the two seeds which I extracted after letting the stalk dry and realising that they were not going to pop after all. One is normal dark brown and the other is creamy white. I'll give the white one a chance, but I would not be surprised if it does not grow.

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Chris - the one in the link is not mine, I just wanted to show the stripiness and how I decided that two plates labelled obesa were actually symmetrica. Neither of my little Symmetricas are in flower but I hope they are opposite sex. I don't like the idea of crossing them as it would dilute the stripe intensity. You can have some littlies with pleasure, if I manage to get seeds/grow some. If I ever have a lot of babies, then anyone here would would like any, can have some. I know they will be going to good homes.

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Roy, you have seen E.obesa in it's native habitat? (my geography is not so good... is that near Great Karoo?)

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David - she is lovely, and makes my old gal look young! And a new rib too.

I noticed that some flowers have no stamens - do yours generally all get stamens, or do you have some without? Have you ever seen a boy-looking stamen on her?

And the obvious question - does she have babies?

Another thing I forgot to say about Youngie is that he has seven ribs - which is lovely. He likes to break the mould. I like that in a plant.

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Oh, and one thing I forgot to ask John, about your little namesake - how old is he? He might be older than my girlie who is probably 1.5 times the diameter but is a flat tangerine shape.. and yours is more pointy.. but my old girl is more roundy at the top.

I'm starting to think that it's impossible to guess a Forby's age from it's shape.

OK, I will try to stop talking about forbies now.

[David_L]

Hi Julie

I've always assumed mine's female. It's certainly never produced fruit, but then I've never had a male. It isn't just Euphorbias that need a mate. I've had a lonely Strombocactus disciformis for a while that wouldn't self-pollinate. I bought it a mate this year and fortunately they both produced a flower at the same time. I did pollen transfer in both directions and it worked beautifully. Both plants produced pods with about a zillion dust like seeds. I sowed one lot more or less straight away and it's germinated like grass. The seedlings are very small and will need to spend the Winter in the propagator, but it shows what a difference really fresh seed can make.

[Julie]

David, from the pic I would say she is definitely a she.

Righty ho. If I get boy seedlings, you get first refusal on one. It might take a few years though. The earliest I have heard of an EO flower when it is two years old. They also have that clever trick of changing sex, especially when young. I think it's safe to say yours will stay girlie.

Another amazing thing is that if you have a group of them, some will change sex so that there is a roughly equal number of each sex. So a boy might behave with you if he senses there is a gal nearby. (how do they know?!?!?)

Google tells me that your other ones are roundy too. Funny that they have grasslike babies.