Hi Susan,
I can't detect any scent on fontanessii, but I think the flies and gnats that usually pollenate them can.

To pollenate them you will need two blooms. One a few days old so that the powdery pollen that has developed at the top of the spadix can be carried to the ovaries at the bottom of of the spadix on a newly opened flower. It usually takes quite a few blooms and flies to get the timing right for them to take.

When I get seeds I like to grow them hoping something unusual will show up, but nothing yet :)

Keiko

hey keiko,
how do you determine when or if the the pollination was successful? how do you know when the seeds (if any) are mature? susan and i have been talking of this in another thread recently. i have around 15-20 inflorescences i've been monkeying w/ for the past few weeks, and am not really sure what i am anxiously awaiting. although the wait IS certainly fun.
thnx,
fuzz

Only one bloom stalk coming up, and I hope another will follow. I think this is a fairly young plant, and it's still in the pot I bought it in. I've heard the bloom is very pretty. Fuzz and I both would like to know if there is a way to determine is pollination was successful or not. Like does the female ovary swell up, then turn brown, and afterwards you can open it up to collect the seed????

Susan

Susan, will there be pictures?? Posted here???

Oh, gosh, if only I can figure out this digital I just got. I have 10 pages of information on how to take close up photos with it, but haven't had the time to play with it or read them. I'll try to do that this weekend. It probably won't open until then anyway.

I do hear it is supposed to be very pretty (purple striped spath).

It's so nice to see a Kansan on the forums!

Susan

Susan has the right idea,
If pollenation is successful the ovaries will swell into berry like structures the same Callas, Arums and most other Aroids. All of mine have been yellow, yellow-green to yellow barely orange. They are ripe when they start to turn brown or wrinkle, whichever comes first, I've never had any turn red when ripe. If you let the berry go too long and dry out too much it will probably kill the seeds.

If they haven't been pollenated the flowers and stem will just die back and rot.

Susan, the spathes on my fontanessii are just banana yellow with a whitish spadix. With age, they recurve downward, looking kind of like a strip of banana peel hanging from the bottom of the spadix. :)

Keiko

Okay - then what am I thinking of that has the purple stripes - could it be the Alocasia plumbea nigra?

Susan

Susan,
I got my first seeds recently from an Alocasia maccrorhiza plant. It was pretty exciting for me as I've been growing elephant ears for 20 years and these are my first seeds. I hope I'll be able to grow something out of them. :-)
Dawna

Hi, Dawna - haven't seen you on the boards in awhile. Good to hear from you again. I have spathes getting ready to bloom on both the Fontanesii and the Illustris now. The Fontanesii is well ahead of the Illustris, so am wondering if I can cross pollinate them? Might be an interesting hybrid.

Have you had flowers on your A. macrorhiza before, and just not had them pollinated, by hand or by beetles or flies?

Susan