What is this?

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Stuart
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Re: What is this?

Post by Stuart »

There's a theory that if Haworthia flower stems are cut just above the first opening flower it will encourage these plantlets to form. Anyone tried it?

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el48tel
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Re: What is this?

Post by el48tel »

Sounds like a hood experiment worth trying
Endeavouring to grow Aylostera, Echinocereus, Echinopsis, Gymnocalycium, Matucana, Rebutia, and Sulcorebutia. Fallen out of love with Lithops and aggravated by Aeoniums.
Currently being wooed by Haworthia, attempting hybridisation, and enticed by Mesembs.
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Re: What is this?

Post by Davey246 »

I can't find anything online showing it, but you'd only get plantlets form at any scale/node/bract on the scape, which might only be the one flower. I can't see why any would form on straight, clear scape tissue.
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Stuart
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Re: What is this?

Post by Stuart »

One short 2cm piece of straight flower stem is all that's needed to produce thousands of Haworthias from tissue culture. Just as flowering sections of cacti sometimes annoyingly produce offsets instead of flowers, the same seems to occasionally happen with Haworthias, Gasterias and Aloes. If it can be assisted by cutting the flower stem above the first flower bud it might be worth a try. There may be some distant connection between this and the bulbils that form on some Agave flower stems.

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Re: What is this?

Post by Davey246 »

Frequently explants are tiny.
Offsets/plantlets on Gasteria scapes seem common, but it does rely on the hormones changing as they are different in flowering and vegetatively growing material.
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Re: What is this?

Post by Paul in Essex »

Just to widen the discussion a little, the same happens to one of my garden sedums. S. telephium 'Karlfunklestein' - my favourite dark leafed sedum - after flowering the peduncle is covered in baby plants, far more than I have ever noticed in other cvs of this species.

Many Furcraea produce copious numbers of bulbils on their inflorescences but some form them on their trunks as well. Furcraea selloa in both its green and variegated forms is a common landscape plant in the Canaries/Madiera/Mediterranean and can often be seen with small plantlets/bulbils (is there a difference or are the words interchangeable?) growing on the trunk.

But also I've seen the same thing happening to a Furcraea parmentieri growing in Madeira which I think is proper weird. I've seen no evidence to suggest this happens to wild plants in Mexico. It is a high altitude species and it has been mooted that flowering is triggered by cold - plants growing in Madeira wouldn't receive that trigger and so keep growing - they are massively tall compared to Mexican plants. The plant then finds other ways to reproduce. Well, it is a theory. :grin:
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Re: What is this?

Post by Davey246 »

Some lilies routinely produce bulbils, so at least at the level of liliacaea, the propensity is there.
I've noticed it many times over the years in garden plants as well as succulents, but don't ask me what plants have been involved, although Begonia (grandis) evansiana does come to mind.
Crassulaceae is another obvious candidate family.

It is probably far more common than aonyone would realise - even some ferns produce bulbils, though obviously not on a scape.
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Re: What is this?

Post by ralphrmartin »

Even the odd cactus bud seems to go wonky and turn into a malformed offset once in a while
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