Breeding Hippeastrums

[Munir]

WOW......how wonderful !

[Heinie]

Thank you for your compliments.

Muhammad, I know why you like those 3 flowers, I also like any flower that has green in it. I go crazy about them and they are must have bulbs for me. Mandonii is extremely hard to find and very, very expensive.

My growing medium is a fairly coarse grit and 25 percent compost. I use plastic pots and do not re-pot too often. I wait until the pot is really pushed out of shape and the bulbs cry for space before I re-pot and divide bulbs. I divided a 25cm pot with a huge Papilio mother bulb and removed 12 offset bulbs. But then Papilio makes a lot of offsets per year.

I imported a Papilio bulb last year that flowers with four flowers instead of the standard two flowers. It is just waking up now and hopefully I can see its first 4 flowers this season. I paid a very stiff price for it but received a guarantee that it will flower 4 flowers.

[M Farooq]

Heine, your collection of Hippeastrums is wonderful. For my own general knowledge, how do you cross these plants? I have never seen (at least the common red) Hippeastrums produce seeds. From the discussion above, it is apparent that they do produce seeds. What is trick to induce the production of seeds in these plants?

[Hamad Ahmed Kisana]

farooq bhai t is very easy through hand pollination.i have common red amaryllis and they produced lots of seeds trough hand pollination.

[M Farooq]

Okay, I never attempted pollination myself...good to know about this trick.

[Munir]

farooq bhai t is very easy through hand pollination.i have common red amaryllis and they produced lots of seeds trough hand pollination.

Hamad,please explain.

[Hamad Ahmed Kisana]

A bee is collecting pollen from the pollen sac, the pollen sacs mature first to avoid self pollination. The appendix with three lobed tip is the female part, stigma


The stigma matures later, in the photo below the stigma of the central flower is not yet ready to receive pollen while stigma of flowers on both sides has turned up, split and is ready to receive pollen.



I pick up a stamen and rub the pollen sac on a mature stigma. Selected pollen can be stored in Refrigerator.

brig sb described it briefly you can take help.

[Hamad Ahmed Kisana]

male and female parts of amaryllis

sir it is very easy both amryllis and day lilly are same.The stigma is the female part of the blossom and the stamen is the male part of the blossom. The easiest way to tell the difference is by looking at the "stems" coming out of the center of the blossom. There will always be 6 similar looking shorter filaments protruding out from the center of the blossom, and 1 longer stem. The longest stem is the female sexual part of the blossom and the tip of the pistol is called the stigma. The 6 shorter filaments with dangling "anthers" on the end of them are the male parts of the blossom.

The blossom is sexually mature from a male perspective when the yellow pollen dust appears on the anthers – they are the dangling sections of the male part of the blossom (at the end of the stamen filaments). They are not hard to miss as there are 6 of them.

The blossom is sexually mature from a female perspective when the stigma (the tip of the pistol) has split into 3. The end of the stigma will open and spread apart with 3 pieces bending out and backwards slightly. The 3 pieces of the stigma folding out and backwards will be a white color. This signifies that the blossom is ripe for pollination and fertilization.

To hand pollinate the blossom, you will use a soft bristled paint brush (a water color paint brush is ideal). Take the brush and lightly wipe the anthers (male part of the blossom) to gather some pollen onto the bristles and then lightly tap or touch the opened stigma areas (the 3 opened parts) to apply the pollen to the female part of the blossom. Once you have done this you have achieved amaryllis pollination.

It is okay to use the pollen from the same blossom to fertilize the female part of that blossom. It is also okay to use pollen from a different blossom for which this would be called cross-pollination. Cross pollination will result in mixed colored blossoms of bulbs germinated from the seeds of a blossom that had been cross pollinated.

[Munir]

Great explanations-both. Thanks

[Farhan Ahmed]

Bravo. Nicely explained