Hi Carmen Grower,

You think just the same as my mother. Of course making seeds takes energy. I only pollinate a bulb once every 3 years. It does not seem to harm or slow the bulb in anyway. I just listen to mom. She will not allow me to pollinate any of her bulbs.
On the other hand, Mom's longest living bulb is 5 years, I on the other hand have some that are 22 and still going.

Happy New Year.

Contrary to popular belief, seed production does not substancially [=in detectable/perceivable manners] exhaust the bulb. Actually, it is the rapid production of these rather giant scapes and umbels of flowers itself, that THESE for themselves initially extract the bulb. This applies in conspicuous manners, for the "common" knight Star Lilies: TETraploids with, generally, large scapes, florets, and leaves: You will perceive that the bulb has already shrunk when it is in full bloom, and it will not shrink further upon the formation of seed pods, provided that you do not neglect the plant.
BTW: I could repeatedly obtain seed pods from CUT-flowers of the cultivar "Showmaster" (upon self-pollination or pollinating with another TET like "Charisma") Out of the umbel of 4 flowers, the two strongest flowers (=the 1st couple) WOULD! produce nice seed pods, while the 2nd couple of flowers (these are slightly weaker) dried up. Note that "Showmaster" produces excellently STRONG stems = >>likely more than sufficient supply of "matter" or "energy" for the seed pods

Happy New Year Hans!!

I would not have thought that it was possible to obtain seedpods from cut flowers that were pollenated after they were cut..! Am I reading your above post correctly? Were you able to keep the stem strong for the time it usually takes for the seedpod to form and were the seeds viable? And, do you put fertilizer in the water to nurish the stem and forming seedpods? So, conceivably, you could pollenate a flower stem from a bouquet and have some hope it would set seeds? Sorry for all the questions..I just didn't know that this was possible!!

Donna

I cut off a scape of "Oskar" when it was done blooming and layed it aside on a shelf in the plant room, I finally ran across it again today and the pods had burst with selfed seeds, they all had embryos and were nice, plump and black. The scape was NOT in any water, it has been detached from the bulb for over a month. The seed pod continued to form despite being cut from the plant AND without any extra nutrition! I'm assuming the scape nourished the pod as the majority of it had shriveled.

I also noted that when a plant has finished blooming and still happened to be rootless that I could cut the top of the inflorescence and let the rest of it wither and dry the moisture would collect back into the bulb, bulbs that had significantly shrunk while producing the scape had plumped back up after the scape had withered. Take note that these were ROOTLESS plants with no mechanism to take up substantial water.

Thanks, Josh, and Happy New Year! That is very interesting and very informative. I think we all knew that it was best to let the scape wither before cutting it off the plant..as well as the leaves.. even though I didn't always do it, but the seedpod forming to the point of producing viable seeds after being severed from the plant, and without water no less..! These plants are amazing, aren't they....but then again, maybe you guys already knew this....

Donna

Donna,

I had absolutely no clue :) I thought it was incredible, how in the world can these plants work so hard? They must have some sort of extinction complex ;) They're not going out without a fight!!!!

Thank you very much for the valuable information, Sir Hans. Exactly what I was looking for.

Xuan