Surely someone here grows them from seed

Not me, I've never tried them. Are they species or crosses? I'm just wondering if there is some reason they might not be viable.

Andrew Steens book "Bromeliads for the contempory garden" says that Nidularium seeds should germinate in 1-2 weeks, he has a picture of Nids ready to be potted up - they appear to be just grown in seedling mix.

I haven't personally grown them - his book is a good read.

Rick

I've read Steens' book and it is a good book. Everything that I've read says that nid seeds are grown the same as neo seeds. I've done all kinds of crosses and even pretty basic crosses of innocentii with Francois Spae and another unknown nid are not working. Like I said, I have gotten a few Francois Spae x Neo seeds to germinate. Maybe nids just take a bit longer than everything else. I've had really good results this month from dyckia, neo, aechmea and araeococcus so I'm surprised at the nids.

I have only grown one Nidularium from seeds , and they have not flowered yet ,, and may prove to be intergeneric .
Supposedly Nid. purpureum , they are flowering size , so after a pot on and a fert' I might see some action this summer .

I'm now getting really good germination rates with my few remaining Nid seeds. I guess they prefer cooler weather or maybe they need to sit in a coin envelope for a few months first.

Hi bromadams - I don't know if the following info. will be of any help to you or not.

I haven't tried growing Nidularium seed, but just for the hell of it I planted some seed from a plant I bought as X Nidumea 'Claret Cup'.(I don't know if this is the correct name as I haven't seen it before or since and I can't find a pic. of it anywhere I've looked, not even the FCBS photo index)

I found this seed germinated and grew at the same rate as Neoregelia seed sown at the same time and under the same conditions.

I don't know what it will produce as it was in flower when I bought it and have no idea what it was crossed with. Maybe it self pollinated, who knows?

However, now the seedlings have come this far (about 3/4" high) I'll grow a few on to see what they produce anyway.

All the best, Nev.

You wouldn't have a picture of your purported xNidumea, would you, Nev? Bigenerics are usually mules (i.e. sterile), although I do have a xCanmea that self-pollinated, so it's not entirely unheard of.

Hi Lisa - Sorry I don't have a pic. and even if I did I wouldn't know how to post it anyway (maybe when my son gets back from overseas next year he can show me how).

As I said I don't even know if there is such a plant as I can't find reference to it anywhere I've looked. Are you familiar with it, or is it like I now suspect, and possibly just a bogus name?

The plant is about twelve inches across and about ten inches high. The leaves are 1 1/2" wide and much softer than a Neo's (about the same texture as Nid. longiflorum). They are a deep glossy maroon in colour and have quite pronounced SOFT spines along their edges.
The flowers were finished when I bought it but the small leaves surrounding them (I don't know the correct name for them, are they the scapes?) were more of a deep crimson as I remember and didn't protrude very far from the centre of the main leaves.

When I bought it I the flowers were finished as the seed capsules were well developed by then so I don't know what colour the flowers were.

The pups which I took from the original plant are quite slow growing and haven't flowered yet but I will take a pic. when and if they do they do.

The plant wasn't anything spectacular to look at, but it was the name that caused me to buy it as I was new to collecting plants for my hobby and I didn't have a X Nidumea (it looks like I still mightn't)

Sorry I can't describe it any better for you as I too am a member of the "CRAFT" club.

Thanks for the response, all the best, Nev.

No, I don't know the plant, Nev. I was just curious to see if it really looked like a bigeneric. It's in the registry as a Hummel hybrid, but as is usual for his crosses, the parents aren't given, it just says Nidularium and Aechmea. Your description sounds Nid-ish, but without seeing the plant, particlarly the shape of the inflorescence, it's hard to know if there really is any Aechmea blood in there. Just because a hybridizer put a certain pollen on a flower doesn't necessarily mean that's actually what took.

There have been several threads telling how to post pictures. Here's one of them:

Here is a link that might be useful: How to post photos

Just a thought, I've not had problems with Nid seeds germinating, but seed maturity is important. Possibly your seed was not fully mature?

The same batch of seeds that didn't work in June are working in October.