Wow, it will be interesting to see what comes out of those seeds, Stephania. If it did cross with D. marnier-lapostolle I wonder if the inflorescence will have the same tendency to branch and continue blooming.

Do you have pictures of the seed? I thought that all of the Pitcairnioidae had round flat seeds.

Since it's still blooming, maybe you'll have the chance to try and pollinate it with a Hechtia and see if you can get a trigeneric. I have a xVriecantarea and a Werrauhia coming into bloom now, and even though I don't think the cross will be particularly attractive I just want to see if it will work.

Science! ;-)

I didn't take the seed pic, but still have un-rippen,
2-3 seed pods, on the old inflorescence tip.
So I will take them to show soon when they rip.
Anyway, I got few species of Deuterocohnia sp. seed from my German friend.
I found they all appear very small and yet quite linear in shape.

It's today morning, I had tried to cross this bigeneric with Dyckia estevesii
I use xDyckcohnia as seed parentage, as the Dyckia estevesii's pollens were very done.
I cut the x Dyckcohnia 's petals and stamens off from 6 flowers
and placed Dyckia's pollens on the exposed stigmas by a small paintbrush.

I also cross Ortho 'Blaze' with Orth. saxicola var. saxicola,
as I wish to have a hybrid with silver dusty on red spiny leave
that form more compact rosette.

Stephania, I have a sibling to Orth. 'Brittle Star' that has the same compact spiny form but with silver dusting on the leaf. It's more brown than red though, and not glossy.

Do you have O. mello-barretoi? I've only seen a picture, but it looks like a cutie, and might make some interesting crosses.

Sound interesting !
That nearly black, Ortho. mello-barretoi, is also a 'Holy Grail' that I'm looking for, too.
My german friend just told me that his friend gonna meet Leme, the Brazilian Brom Godfather!, in Brazil
and could have a chance to get some plants or seeds from this great Bromeliad botanist.

These are some of my compact Ortho. that would be useful for making compact hybrids.

Orthophytum saxicola complex.

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Hi Lisa and all,
I found in 'The Bromeliad Lexicon' of Prof. Werner Rauh, wrote:
"...The Pitcairnioideae seeds are usually small, triangular to lanceolate, winged with a tiny tissue..."

So I should to use the term 'lanceolate' instead of 'linear'
for my x Dyckcohnia 'Conrad Morton' seed.

And these are the pics of seed pods, seeds and some germination which I sow on November 20.

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Two days ago.
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This morning.
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Very interesting. The pods look similar to Dyckia, but with little worms instead of stacks of poker chips inside. ;-)

You definitely have germination though. Congratulations!

Due to my suspect ???
I then asked to the previous owner of this plant, Mr Dutch Vandervort himself,
who, I've just realized that, is doing his great project that I will not mention here.

I asked him about the origin and its characteristic,
then he kindly replied me some interesting informations
that I would like to spread to the xeric fans here :

"...What is Conrad Morton?

This plant was produced in the greenhouse of Paul Hutchinson
at his Tropic World Nursery in Escondido, near San Diego about 1990.
The event occurred when Paul was very ill from lifelong kidney problems.
A deuterocohnia, set seed. The resulting seedlings did not quite look like the mother plant.
A very good friend of mine, Dorothy Byer, (Sadly she is also now deceased)
was trying to help Paul with his disorderly collection.

She coddled the seedlings and kept quite a few of them alive.
The crossing (if a cross actually occurred) was thought to be a result of pollen
from Dyckia macedoi.
The pollination was not intentional, but an act of nature
-- an ant, a hummingbird, or some other random thing.
D. macedoi seemed to be the most likely parent,
but that was never shown definitively to be the case.

I have not taken time to look it up,
but I am sure that the seed parent was Deuterocohnia meziana.
The big question in my mind is -- how variable is D. meziana.
Is this actually a hybrid or a variant species plant.
I have produced other crosses between Deut. longipetala and dyckias
and the resulting seedlings have always been weak and never reached maturity.
I am very suspicious of actual parentage of Conrad Morton.

Another question you asked earlier may reveal more on this subject.
Why is the seed of your cross of Conrad Morton with D. marnier-lapostollei shaped
like classic deuterocohnia seed rather than more like dyckia seed?
Who knows! If the Conrad Morton is actually pure deuterocohnia
then it is natural that any seed resulting from deuterocohnia or any other source
would look like deuterocohnia seed.

If Conrad Morton is actually a hybrid after all,
then we would expect the resulting seed to show some influence of
the inter-generic pollen parent -- dyckia or whatever else
that parent genus might have been.

Is it possible that the pollen parent of Conrad Morton was a hechtia?
I think that is possible -- and Hutchinson did have hechtias in his greenhouse.
Furthermore, hechtia seed looks more like deuterocohnia seed than like dyckia seed.
I also think it is also possible that the Conrad Mortons were variants of the species,
D. meziana, or that they were hybrids created by the introduction
of pollen or some other deuterocohnia.

Careful manual pollination under controlled conditions should produce plants
that will verify which of these possibilities is correct...."

Oh, well that certainly clears it up, LOL! Now all you have to do is get all of the species he mentioned together and try each crossing to see if you can duplicate the results. Easy! ;-)

If Dutch is right in his suspicion that Conrad's daddy may have been a Hechtia, then your cross with a Dyckia could be trigeneric-- assuming, of course, that it didn't just self-pollinate. I think you'll be able to tell by the spines whether or not the cross took.

Well,...I KNEW that was what likely happened. ;-))
But anyway,thanks for posting that info Stephania.I always learn something new from the GW experts. What ever comes from your cross,know this: I want one ! [Hectdyconia?]
Bob

You know Lisa, Dutch also asked me some questions, such as
How old I am, Am I going to accept the challenge? Do I have time?
and What do I think?

Now, I gonna realize that what he means... LOL

So, it should be 'Dyckhectcohnia' !!! Bob, and you are in my list sure :-))

Or xxDeuterodyckihecticon........iaiaia.

I don't know that in the habitat what kind of pollinator does fertilization for the xeric brom,
especially in genus Deuterocohnia which has yellow long tube-liked petals,
I guess Hummingbird, but here in my Bangkok city, Thailand,
I found ant and a kind of tiny bee swarming around inflorescenc of x Dyckcohnia.

Week ago, while I was watching these pollinators doing their job,
I noticed a hunting bug trying to catch (or chasing? not sure) tiny bee!

BTW, this morning I found at least 3 crossed seed pods, with Dyck. estevesii pollen,
are fertiled and getting bigger :))

A hunter !

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Going to catch that flying tiny bee.

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BTW, you see, all of my specimen plants, Dyckia estevesii are blooming.
These guy are Brom. collector form Netherland and Australia while visited my house last week.
So, in the mean time, I will try to cross these 'Fan Shaped' Dyckia
with some selected clones of Dyckia marnier-lapostollei too.

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Is that Anders Lindstrom, Stephania?

Yes Lisa..that Mr. Anders Lindstrom !!!
Curator of Nong Nooch Tropical Botanical Garden.
also known as one of the world's best Cycad specialist and he also collect xeric brom too!!!
He can speak Thai very well, as he would stay here permanently, at NN Garden, Pattaya, Thailand, I think.

Infact, I met him long time ago via our same interest, but not a plant, Tortois, as we've kept these pet when I met him at reptile shop, then just realized, years later, that he is a plant collector!

That day, he brought his friends from Autralia to visit my house.

Absolutely Great photography Stephania !
That bee-hunter bug pic is a once-in-a-million shot.
Good luck on your new cross attempts.
Bob

Anders is also president of the Heliconia Society International, and knows his gingers too. He's visited us a couple of times and picked up some of my Neo hybrids as well as various other odds and ends. A very interesting guy!

I noticed that Anders is rather interested in Orthophytum
and also some odd looking Dyckia,
such as Dyc. estevesii that he have a really big clump in Nong Nooch collection.
I gave him a bunch of Ortho and some xeric from my collection.

Next month, he invite me to visit Nong Nooch Garden,
I have to bring a leather glove, right :-D

Don't you have full body armor, Stephania? I would think you'd need it to work with all of your spinies!

I don't remember Anders showing any particular interest in Orthos or Dyckias when he was here. He got mostly tank-types from me, especially anything in the blue/lavender range. If you see a bunch of Werrauhia kupperiana at Nong Nooch, those came from us too. They should be pretty big by now.

He promised me some little gingers too, perhaps you can remind him if you see him! ;-)

BTW, do you know when Nongporn is planning to come here? I hope you will email me before she comes. I want to ask you about a few things.

LOL...:-))

Anders seem to collect every kind of tropical plant !
He told me that almost of the bromeliad collection in Nong Nooch Tropical BG came from Marie Selby BG and some from his trips in South America.
Sure I will remind him.

And BTW, Nongporn told me last week that she have to postpone her visit to Hawaii
till after the new year, as she has had a lot of plant shipments to export since October.
But she informed me that, Sharon's son will arrive Thailand in 27th of this month (or Jan, not sure)
That I could give your Crypt via Sharon's son.

Sharon has 2 daughters, but no son. Maybe one of them is going to Thailand?

No hurry on that. I just wanted to check with you and see if I have some things that you don't have. Nongporn has my email.