sagiXsagi

despite the stressed look, my bigger sinica has been developing bigger year after year, there are so many flowers this time.. Hopefully the last one which is flowering for the first time is female, or I am stuck with 4-5 male plants

oh well, I have been getting impatient. I have a pretty big , 4-5 year old plant, in the ground, gets plenty of light and has space to travel and climb on to. I thought it would flower earlier and easier. I am in ~ zone 9 I even had an Argyreia flower at 18 months from seed, and that was in a friggin barrel! Any clues for when it usually flowers? Also about pollination, does it need a pair or its a self=pollinating?

i do not agree. distachya never gets that tall, and some of those plants are pretty old, though the pictures arent that good.. the very round one yeah that must be a huge sucker that grew after the fire... in any case I intend to explore the area more to study both the population and the regrowth.... but like a said, distachya are a short plant... I am having a 3rd sinica flowering and I hope this time its a female!

turkish scrambler should be foeminea or more unlikely aphylla

I will be documenting how the plants recover from the fire and providing pictures for sure. For now here are some more. I am not sure if the rocky river origin material can help with the regeneration after fire. Many mediteranean shrubs come readily after fires and I think so does distachya.. What was impressive to me is that the plants didnt seem to have burnt, just baked and stayed in place as they were.. or so it seems... One thing is for sure, these types of coastal rocky delta formations seem to be one of the typical habitats for the species.. at least in greek ecosystems... which is a type of habitat that seems to become increasingly rarer... another type of distachya habitat is sanddunes..

private group dedicated to mandragora genus mainly from the perspective of cultivation (plus some related discussion about rare solanacea ) https://www.facebook.com/groups/2178150399119165

agreed .. enviromental factors can be even the basic one, what size of pot the plant is in - the bigger, the most it will show a wider range of more mature characteristics, and it will do it faster Rib play (adding reducing) usually seems to halt the growth rate for at least a little, one of the most extreme cases is altmans clone , where, the plant alternates from normal growth and rib play/ monstrosa growth, which decreases the plants speed a lot.. Lots of semi-monstrosa as faster though.. And casual rib play can occur in clones that are not monstrosa at all... IME 4 ribbers always do rib play.

I only managed once to get a seedling to maturehood, its flowering now and its a narrow leaf one. I also have a wide leaf var , also flowering.. Honestly its so easy to propagate through suckers, that I havent bothered again with seeds. Question: both my narrow leaf and broad leaf vars seem to be self-fertile, and the little seed they do is usually lost with the air lol. How are hybrids done if they are self- fertile?? or could I be wrong and only the narrow leaf one is self-fertile?

exciting!

SEASONAL / GENERAL UPDATE: Despite a great and lasting heat wave this summer, the plants were okey protected in a bright shady spot on my roof. Reaching september and the heat wave leaving, the distachyas started growing and as soon as a cool wave in mid september hit, the went full on veg mode and even went to start a second flowering session! So now I have brought them to more light The sinicas remain the most stubborn in their growth. Equisetina are similar with sinica in all their habit, a bit slower but with a taller pheno and noticeably bluer - the bluest of the species I have grown. nebrodensis with the appropriate pruning is the most handsome of the species I have grown as an ornamental plant and also its remarkably hardy in my climate

my vine has been doing those nectaries for at least 2 -3 years.. maybe I should try the fert + prune path. still nothing by the way

thanks for replies.. OH YEAH, I forgot to mention that I am in souther greece, thus the other hemisphere. zone 9~ 9+ or somethng .. I hope its not like turbina that tried to flower in mild winter days and then dropped buds. we do have a winter its summer ending here now

thanks.. Distachya is an easy species, really. The easiest by far. here's some more updates 2 female distachyas, and closeup of the fruits/cones 2 x sinicas , the left one of still unknown sex equisetina, like I said in previous post, this year it shows its bigger than sinica phenotype , after refusing to really grow for a couple years nebrodensis / major

chiloensis has nice big strobili. both of my biggy plants are in full flowering mode. last year it was only a reluctant bloom. this I call my ebay sinica, bought as rooted sucker. I uppotted this to take a couple nice big tufts with some root. First time I use so big tufts to creat new plant and I reckon it will be faster than using smaller suckers. showing the mother plant before taking the suckers out and the 2 big tufts repotted. This is my big seed grown sinica, many flowers stalks, still going And this is foeminea made from rooted suckers taken from natural occuring plants here. it had grown a bit but I neglected watering it in summer and it died back a lot, now it has been doing much better and is almost where it was before the drying out.

E. chiloensis cone is pretty interesting and distinct from other species.. Unfortunately my two biggy specimens are both male. Still hoping on a female on other two smaller ones.

My equisetina at last seems to wake up strong. Growth looks completely sinica-like in my eyes perhaps a bit more errect/thicker branches. green segments are new growth - blue segments are older branches.

sinica for me looks its best when it has done all veg growth for the season.. its still growing and it keeps producing flowering stalks now.. I will soon post more pictures... yes I think you mean ph plants.. distachya is faster as a species.

that sinica plant is ~ 5 years old from seed. here it is today , it always comes back strong when doing new vegetative growth

yet another photo update My E. altissima, a generally unknown species from morocco, north africa that seems to be a climber - crawler but is pretty different (f.e. more slender) than the local foeminea , has been pretty active, and I repotted one of them, and I saw today the other is making strobili (its a male) E. sinica growing from a myriad point plus growing a side shoot E. nevadensis , a new attampt, young plant that is still not over that seedling stage E. chiloensis branches E.major and mangragora automnalis

big distachya reacting like a champ to the repotting in even bigger pot

Well, while there's this awesome thread with notes and details on germinating seed, complete with pictures of seed and seedlings, I thought it would be a cool idea to have a general thread with various info and notes for general cultivation, propagation etc. As one of my plants seems to be switching to climbing or something, I have several questions, so it would be nice if we exchanged some infos. There is also this thread I was reading the other day which has nice info and discussion with pics on caapi propagation through cuttings. So here's my bigger caapi , its a 'C' strain, and has began woodification of the first 10-15 cm of its tiny trunk. Last few days the growth of the stem has increased and it seems like it would like to have something to lean on, so I gave it to it. I also noted 2 new symmetrical shoots from the lower part. My caapis are about 5 months old from sprouting, the big one is in a 5 liter pot in which I put organic veg fert. img host and here's a group shot , I supposedly got 4 types of it, 3 via seeds and 1 by cutting. The seedlings are in a bright and shady part and receive sun for a couple hours in the most difficult part of the day, noon 14-16 hours, but they seem to have tolerated the very small pot size, with some stressing and watering every other day. The recently repotted p.viridis seems to like the spot too. Its a spot I dont really use for cultivation. I have also put two in the ground, and I intend to plant a couple more perhaps So here are my questions: 1. I have heard caapis respond well to prunings. I also read that pruning it and cutting it down and perhaps tidying it prevents it from becoming a mass of small vines. When is it old enough to prune it? When is the better time to prune it? Does it respond well to training it to go where ya want? Reason I am asking is that I have planted some cacti and chilli in the same spot and I dont want the vine to steal the sun from the other plants... 2. My big specimen seems to be exploding but I am not sure its twining.. Is it a twining climber or a leaner? 3. My Argyreia, depending on how protected or not their spot was, they lost some or almost all of their leaves.. does caapi drop leaves seasonally or when stressed by cool winters?? 4. Another thing is cold tolerance and all, I am in zone 9 more or less, but I guess I will find out in a couple months. 5. Whats the ideal pot size to chose to transplant all these seedlings? 5llt seems fine but maybe less would be okey for another 18 months grow time.. Any suggestions? 6. what about the different strains. are there any striking feats that differentiate the types.. I remember one of them makes knobs on the trunk... c= caupuri t= tunkunaka o= ourinhos 7. How long do plants take to reach maturity and flower? Are caapis self-fertile or they need more than one plant to produce fruits and seed? I guess that's all for now... You're welcomed to add useful links and your own notes PS: awesome link showing flowers and strain comparison https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/6397799

nothing special, they like full on nutricients though and a big root space.. it goes nuts if you put it in the ground

some basic aeropony kit would work great