planter

looks a lot like a Gymnocladus dioicus to me

there are approx 700-1,400 species in the Psychotria genus have fun

kada you need to get yourself Wendy Zomlefer's Guide to Flowering Plant Families that will straighten it all out for you, mostly. will really really help at least.

its really hardy and easy to grow, could even be invasive though they tend to set a ton of seeds like every artemisia but they can be transplanted just fine ime

ah yea i had it mixed up, pistillate then staminate!

i guess i should say at least 65-75 warmer will help, but warmer temps may also increase algal growth rates and other crap in the water, but if you change it 1x a day it wont matter that much but i just left mine out at room temp in the ambient light in the kitchen so that was the temps about when ive germed seeds and they usually crack and send out the sprout after 5-7days.

the color is a little light on it. its hard to tell just by the flower which species it is but thats certainly a Nymphaea sp. but it may be capensis or nouchali or some random hybrid of who knows what. most tropical water lilies have some sort of activity though ime. the flowers come up from under the water for one day, and iirc are staminate the first day, then the close up at night and submerge and then come up again the next day but then are pistillate (the stamens release pollen on the first day, and then the pistils receive on the second day). some species are night blooming though and do the opposite, bloom at night and close up during the day.

i havent gotten around to writing up a cultivation guide for Nelumbo sp. but I have some pics here showing how to germ them. from scarification to germination. I transplanted them to their first container right after the shoot began to emerge, but they take a little while before they will root themselves into the soil. quite easy though, but yea the water should be 65-75F. once they start to grow they enjoy a nutrient rich soil and water, cause they can grow at awesome rates. http://entheopedia.org/?action=Photos&pid=73

i dont have an exact date on the germination of these plants but it was at least a year and a half ago if not longer, they have been pruned back and repotted a few times (pruned way more often than repotted, i cut back the flowers often). mealy bugs are the only pest, and theres a couple on each plant usually that when i see i squish by hand. no aphids or spider mites (i dont have mites but have been fightin aphids on a few of my peppers and salvia species i have indoors). chances are i will get rid of them after this summer (will harvest all of the material), because i have some smaller ones that i will also grow out this summer and save those plants next winter

damn thats really interesting I noticed the changing leaf pattern from alternate to opposite long ago, but when I first began striking cuttings I never payed attention to what tips or growth I was using, and from my attempts I had concluded it was simply that the herbaceous growth was not developed enough to produce adventitious roots (the pericycle was not developed enough to produce roots due to the lack of secondary growth). After those attempts I tried some cuts that were gettin semi-woody and woody and they were able to root, but I found that simply propagating the suckers (and inducing them with BAP applications to the base of the stem at the soil level) was the easiest way, as long as you get the sucker off with some woody growth at the base, and having a rootlet or two on it helps a lot but now i will def have to re-investigate this phenomena myself....maybe i just have to pay attention to which leaf pattern i try to clone....

holy basil can get way older than regular basil and still grow fine ime i dont think it really tolerates it that cold, i cant remember now how long my plants stayed outside but im pretty sure they came in before they were hit by frost, i do remember in oct though in the cold they pretty much went totally purple its awesome in pesto too! i use as much as i can harvest and make a batch of pesto with holy basil, and regular mixed in, prob 1 part holy basil 4 parts reg basil, has been declared best pesto by anyone whos tried it

yea real calea zacatechichi can be rooted by cuttings i notice though that nearly all the vendors ive seen sellin the plants and claiming to have calea have an entirely different plant i usually cut the leaves back on the cuttings quite a bit, and root them directly into media in high humidity, usually treated with IBA or other rooting hormone although i have also successfully rooted them out in 50/50 perlite/verm and kept in trays of water on heat mats in a greenhouse, without added humidity. they arent the quickest to root, but i have gotten 75% rates or so with the above methods, and using various cuttings from the growing tip down, but they are usually 2-3nodes and 4-6" http://img709.imageshack.us/img709/5213/calea6703850.jpg

Nymphaea seeds are a pain in the ass, be very patient, and then be more patient. also be very very careful when planting, and soak them in a small dish with water or wet paper towel for a bit first as the seeds may have a tendency to float otherwise Nelumbo are super easy to grow, just dont forget to scarify the seeds

triploid = 3n = 3 sets of chromosomes leaf morphology is not an indication of the level of ploidy in a plant a triploid will be sterile though and yes, diff levels of ploidy occur naturally in plants but since triploids are sterile they are rare, often human creations (think of the banana, no developed seeds in cultivated triploid vars, they get 3n by crossing tetraploids (4n) with diploids (2n) if i recall correctly) fertile ones like tetraploids and hexaploids(6n) occur though (wheat is a hexaploid, and has made sequencing its genome a total mess)

looks like an Ipomoea batatas leaf (sweet potato)