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The Corroboree

poisonshroom

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Posts posted by poisonshroom


  1. I had a seed pod germinate accidentally. I collected it from a local botanic garden off the ground and forgot it was in my backpack for a while then just threw it into a pot and covered it with potting mix and forgot about it until a few months later seedlings appeared (it took me a few months to realize what they were). I think just like iboga, fresh seed still in the pod with the pulp is beneficial, but they take a long time to come up.


  2. Wow, I miss him - I don't check in here much these days, but this was the first thread I opened and it reminded me of him. Off topic, but I recently inherited a couple of what I think are Dracena draco a friend saved from his collection after he passed, so a part of him lives on.

    As for gumbi gumbi, Bunnings stocks them in their tuckerbox collection, but who knows if they have the medicinal properties if the speculation that the host is the important factor is true (or if they even are really hemiparasitic).


  3. Update time =]

    I still have heaps of T. pachanoi (including a tip) and 3 pieces of the SS02XJuuls Giant (all mids)

    I now have 4 brugmansia hybrid cuttings that should start shooting roots next week - the are grown from a seed and all taken off the same plant (I think its a yellow aurea crossed with a pink or white sauveolens). Havnt seen it flower yet, but the surviving plants I have from the last batch of seed I planted have survived a lot of neglect, so they are tough.

    3x ~25cm tip cuttings T. peruvianus 'Gnosis'

    1x ~20cm T. peruvianus "Medicine garden red spine'

    2x unnamed T. bridgesii (bunnings variety)

    ~1m of Senecereus grandiflorus $0.50/cm

    ~1m (maybe) pereskiopsis $0.50/cm

    A couple of Opuntia macrocentra (purple prickly pear) pads

    Thanks - respond by pm, prices for the trichos are the same as above


  4. I agree with torsten - I dont see any point, all the new ones are at the top, so if you go back more than a few pages its unlikely any will still be active. Although I think people should refrain from posting "plant arrived today" type stuff in the sale thread and put that kind of thing in the member reputation section or by PM

    • Like 7

  5. Mine rarely produce fruit here (id say its not a self-fertile variety), but there is one fruit on it at the moment - conveniently 10m up a gum tree -_-. The ones I get from the farmers markets are much better than the supermarket varieties, but I have had some decent ones from coles before, including a yellow skinned, white fleshed hylocereus variety.

    I agree with woof, that the yellow selenecereus have the nicest and strongest flavour, followed by the red fleshed hylos then the white flesh. I find the white ones to be more sour tasting than the red ones, which have more of a kiwi/melon flavour. I havnt had the chance to try many other species, but the ones I have tried have ranged from sweet but insipid to just plain flavourless (they were all small species with pea sized fruit though)

    Its a bit odd that cacti fruit (especially the dragon fruit and prickly pears) arent more popular in Aus, because we have such a huge amount of land thats suitable to grow them on (evidence by the huge problem they cause as weeds in many places), but admittedly most species are hard to prepare due to spiney plants and fruits and not suitable for long distance transport

    • Like 2

  6. I find they germinate readily just planting the washed seeds straight into some well draining seed raising mix or potting mix. The seedlings are prone to rotting, so they need to dry out a bit between watering, but they are pretty hardy (albeit slow-growing) otherwise. They also dont seem to like root disturbance when they are young.


  7. Im having a go at the golden oysters now - pasteurizing some straw as we speak. Im not too hopeful but figure its worth a go - especially oysters, which are usually regarded as the easiest type of mushroom you can grow (apart from maybe cubes, but I wouldnt know anything about that :P). Whether they work or not its an interesting idea, but I agree with what someone said above - colonized dowels would probably be a better way to sell this kind of thing, but I think they are aiming for long shelf-life rather than high success rates.

    • Like 1

  8. Hey all - now I'm on holidays I'm doing a winter clean up now that everything is dry and going quiet. So far just some cacti that are too heavy to move again or have been pre-cut and I havnt had the time or resources to do anything with, but I may add to the list as I go.

    So far I have:

    3x 30cm pieces of SS02XJuuls Giant

    1x 20cm tip of the same

    5x 30cm PC pachanoi including a tip

    Both of these plants have been under shade cloth for the last couple of months since the cyclones that came through here earlier in the year (one was on its side the entire time because it fell over in TC Ita), so they are a bit etiolated and the SS02XJG is a bit yellow (see picture) - both will still do fine once they shoot some roots.

    2x 15cm TerscheckiiXPsycho0 one is a pup off the 30cm mid piece below

    1x 30cm " " mid

    These have been indoors for months after I cut down my big guy (see my gallery) and didnt have time to plant out, so they are very stressed and quite light in colour. The 30cm piece is still dark, but very thin and one of the 15cm pieces will have a bend at the bottom - the parent was cut down then cut into two logs which were laid on their side indoors, one sent off a pup and the other continued growing 'upwards' towards the window making a 90 turn :P

    I also have a couple of Voacanga africana seedlings ~15cm tall

    All cacti are $1/cm and the V. africana are $20. Prices dont include postage, but if you want multiple items they will be sent together

    post-6534-0-70948400-1404290062_thumb.jp

    PC pachanoi on the left SS02XJG on the right

    Thanks B)

    post-6534-0-70948400-1404290062_thumb.jpg

    post-6534-0-70948400-1404290062_thumb.jpg


  9. lol I also went to Boulia to study the waddi tree. I have a few seedlings from seed collected last year. If I can find the ones I have left ill put some up here =] Very interesting tree, and the wood is incredible - sinks like a rock and the pieces in my fish tank are still leaching tannins after nearly a year and going thru the dishwasher twice! Nice colour too. Also they randomly get flushes of soft reddish coloured foliage (also a mystery as to why) and the green leaves are more flammable than dried ones, which is odd in a fire dominated ecosystem like where they come from. I could write a report on this species (oh wait- i did :P ).

    • Like 3

  10. I find fresh seeds germinate best (they grow locally here), and by soaking you can see which ones are most likely to germinate because they tend to swell up and the seed coat starts to come off. Iv had them randomly come up from 'duds' too though - one of the duds i just pushed into a box with vegies growing in it and it came up too (much later than the others). I find once they get a set of leaves or two they are pretty difficult to kill - very drought tolerant and semi-deciduous, they also come up from suckers resprout after complete defoliation from neglect. One of my favourite natives

    • Like 1

  11. All gone =] Thanks to everyone that showed interest. If you really really want a piece you may be able to con me into parting with a small bit, but otherwise there should be pups in a couple of months, and I might put some other stuff up soon too

    Thanks you

    • Like 2

  12. Interesting. I have heard about something like this before (probably in a lecture) - you can notice a similar thing here in some weed populations, like Lantana, which is still an invasive and widespread weed, but its negative impacts are less than predicted/less than they were. Where I live you rarely see Lantana except a few places, and further west where it is a big problem its mainly older plants, which are probably going to die soon. Chonky apples (Z. mauritiana) are the same - you mainly see mature ones (but there are still plenty of seedlings/suckers).

    Unfortunately, as they pointed out in the article, it may not be a good thing because either way the soil composition changes (possibly permanently) and becomes unfavourable for the weed and consequently other plant species - the weeds are successful usually because they can tolerate or thrive in the same type of soil as the natives prefer, but the native species tend to have more specific requirements (hence why they are only found in certain locations within their native range). Although I dont think it will be seriously bad in the long term as succession will still happen, with pioneer species coming up, changing the soil back to its former condition, dying and allowing longer lived species to return (provided the weeds dont take advantage of the reconditioned soil - but weeds mainly take over places after disturbance of some kind, so somewhere not controlled by fire or regular flattening by storms etc. should eventually go back to near normal (the way it was before the weeds were introduced, but there will probably still be some remaining weeds that can survive but cant take over)

    • Like 1

  13. I have 2 or 3 20-30cm pieces for sale from my big one that had to be cut down (see my gallery for a bit of a pictorial of it's growth over the last couple of years). It was sad to have to cut it down but it was becoming a bit dangerous and I didnt want it to fall over during a storm/cyclone etc. All pieces are mid sections and very fat, its also my fastest growing cactus - rivaling some of my other non-cactus plants in terms of growth rate.

    PM if interested. I may add other items to this thread later.

    Thanks

    • Like 2

  14. Thats depressing man. I think a lot of them will recover though - you'll be surprised. Im lucky where I am in that we never get hail (I think it has happened, but it couldnt be called hail - more like icey rain), but we get smashed by wind and flooding. Pretty much everything I couldnt take inside during yasi got affected in some way (most of my gardens were flattened), but I dont think I lost anything completely - most of them either continued growing (at an angle) or regrew from roots, broken stems etc.

    Good luck over the rest of the season - as others have said, its good to learn from these kinds of events and be prepared for when it happens again


  15. Yep - Im talking about my area specifically (a few other people who have grown it here for many years never got fruit), as you can see a few hundred kms south and they fruit. They even seem to fruit in NNSW and south east QLD. Id say its something to do with pollination - they are self-fertile though apparently.


  16. They are the unopened flowers. Iv never had fruit on mine (lots of flowers though), although apparently they never seem to set fruit where I am for some reason. The fruit are about the size of a kumquat and sort of look similar (or like a mini lemon lol), and the best way Iv seen to post them is just the whole fruit in some sphagnum in a ziplock baggie. Thats also the best way to get the seeds to germinate.

    • Like 1

  17. Ah yes - Iv seen that article a few times now (Im currently doing an essay on pituri actually :BANGHEAD2: ). There really arent too many new articles out there as far as Iv found, with the most recent being from the early 80's (I may have missed some though), and most of them seem to confirm the older articles, with the oldest ones to indicate nicotine AND nornicotine being present being from the early 20th century (1910 I believe is the earliest mention).

    Ill be interested to hear how it goes. Keep in mind though, from the literature the only ones found not to contain any nicotine were from South Australia (and I think NT). Its still an interesting subject even though there has been some reasonable extensive work done on it already (as far as alkaloid content goes anyway)


  18. All dead now =[ the humidity in summer killed them. they all started wilting then the leaves fell off and that was it.

    I still have plenty of seed to try again when i get more GA-3. I was in Boulia earlier in the year, and didnt realize out tudy area (i didnt realize at the time) was only about 50km from the mulligan river, and if i had of mentioned it at the pub (i was there every night too) someone could have shown me where to find them and possibly given me a sample :BANGHEAD2: oh well. And i agree with torsten in that those outback desert bordering areas are really interesting places, and i had a great time at boulia

    • Like 1

  19. Mine never fall off (out of about 5-10 i got to germinate) some of them rotted because i left it on. Now i usually just gently hold either side of the split with my forefinger and thumb and gently pull the two sides apart and off the cotyledons. Sometimes it takes a bit of wiggling to get it loose, but they usually come of fine. even if you rip the cotyledons a but they tend to continue to grow fine. Also spraying them with water frequently before removing the seed coat softens it a bit making it easier to get off

    • Like 1

  20. I love it how in these articles they put death statistics up as if its some kind of epidemic, but really I think more people die from panadol each year than from 'synthetic drugs'. I mean 8 deaths in Australia from drugs which have been available for half a decade and openly sold in all tobacconists, sex shops and some alternative lifestyle type stores isnt that alarming to me - hundreds die from alcohol poisoning and heroin overdoses each year, but thats not front page news, and theres no push to ban alcohol.

    Scaremongering propaganda at its finest

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