sagiXsagi
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Posts posted by sagiXsagi
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Its ironic when a 'exotic' plant you have devoted passion into growing, turns out to occur near where you live. but at the end its all really funny and lucky...Well while 3 species, foeminea, distachya and nebrodensis (2 ssp) are reported from greece, I really thought distachya distibution was limited to the few undisturbed costal regions in north greece while it hit me!
I feel really lucky.. because while I was chatting with a new botanist friend, and talking about valencian distachya and central asia distachya, wanting to show him north greece distachya pics I knew I could find from greek fb groups, I found a set of pictures that def seemed distachya from 2018 I didnt remember next to an asphalt road (a new one at that) .. and it was a guy from my region.. so I sent him a message - was he really in my region?? and the kind dude gave me enough hints for me to get to the spot... !
Long story short, this is again, like all ephedra habitats in my region and propably all greece and maybe even all the ephedra euro zone of greece-italy-spain , a remanant , relic population. So this particular remnant population seems to come from when this use to be a real delta .. delta in the rivers sense.. lots of river material and river round stones... Which is one of the typical habitats of distachya in greece.... At once this population in my opinion is of immediate danger.. but thats another story...
the dude that gave me the locations also told me the place had been burnt in recent fire and that he doubt the plants wouls survive, but he told me there are several ephedras in the area.. I was still sceptical then ..
so yeah, I went and (lucky first??) I parked and found the first plants , baked from summer 2021 fire, but when I checked the biggest ones more, I saw they were resprouting. I was immediately happy the plants seemed to have survided the fire, and went on to walk more.. I found pieces of plot that hadnt burn thus I saw several patches of the plant unharmed... there are some really fucking old plants there, and I am sure some of them burnt... but because distachya is a sucker plant, I seems like a pretty firer resistant plant to me ..
and thus , not only I now have a real distachya habitat to explore, but I have the opportunity to do a case study about how it recovers from a fire too!
cheers to everyone!!!!
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private group dedicated to mandragora genus mainly from the perspective of cultivation
(plus some related discussion about rare solanacea )
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On 23/09/2021 at 12:13 AM, SayN said:environmental factors play a huge role in my opinion. I think you'll find the genetics will probably define the types of variations you can expect, but water, sun, root space and growing medium will be the catalysts
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.
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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?
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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
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On 10/07/2021 at 12:40 PM, Enjaytee said:I noticed extra floral nectaries (efn’s) which I hadn’t seen on my caapi before. (Efn pics below)
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
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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
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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?
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On 17/06/2021 at 8:30 AM, Darklight said:SagiXsagi, thank you again, this is still one of my favourite threads. Hope I can grow lovely plants like yours one day
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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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On 21/04/2021 at 11:44 PM, fydesvindico said:5 years! Hectic. Slow growing plants hey. I remember there was a member on here years ago who posted up some pics of monster plants! (Might have been pH) they must have been ancient!
Good work, I love the fact that there are people keeping this plant alive!
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.
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On 06/04/2021 at 5:04 AM, fydesvindico said:Such an interesting plant!
How old is the sincia in the pictures above?
that sinica plant is ~ 5 years old from seed. here it is today , it always comes back strong when doing new vegetative growth
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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
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big distachya reacting like a champ to the repotting in even bigger pot
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On 04/03/2021 at 12:27 AM, rottenjonny said:What would be the recommendation for potting medium or soil prep?
nothing special, they like full on nutricients though and a big root space.. it goes nuts if you put it in the ground
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some basic aeropony kit would work great
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and here is equisettina which was started from rooted cutting and that hasnt grown a lot, starting to grow again after the very mild winter we had overall .. I have high hopes for this years growth!
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I am pretty happy to announce that my bigger seed grown sinica, a male that flowered last year for the first time, has done its first suckers / side shoots.. It must be 4-5 years old. Its also starting to get into vegetative growth again, very excited, its very interesting to see the plant at this phase.
PS: my other sinica which was started from rooted cutting does sideshoots/suckers regularly every year making it easy to make more plants
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On 17/02/2021 at 10:21 PM, migraineur said:Hey, I decided to try to strike some caapi cuttings in a glass of water. I can say that it works.
yep it works - if its not the most warm time of the year, one could use a heat pad which increases the root formation rate a lot...
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wow what a wonderful post! I cant help but think that this guilt is totally un-natural, its engraved to minds from christian religion. religions are just that in their most basic form: they take advantage of peoples awe for death, they manipulate it and make it a self-fulfilling prophecy (and propably transform all this into some kind of neurosis)
on another note, I recently found this amazing "death activist" mortician, she has a youtube channel which deals with several death matters in a very positive way, with some humour thrown in... all in all, its very true that our societies "death rites" and customs in regards with death has made us more in awe, more fearful and more in embarassment in front of other peoples death.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caitlin_Doughty
I am saying others people death, because thats what there is to fear.. Our own death is not that terrifing
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I found a relic Ephedra distachya population in my area, recently damaged from fire
in Ethnobotany
Posted
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..