brugmansia pollination

[Guest reville]

Here at the vet/biomed school we have a poison garden in the central courtyard with all sorts of lovelies and nasties like

rhus toxicodendron,lantana,stypandra,laburnum,

vinca minor and many others including brugmansia candida.

This plant is of a decent size and flowers all the time (white) but sets no seed.does anyone else growing brugmansias have any comments on that? is the problem due to pollination or self incompatibility?

also has anyone hybridised different coloured brugmansias - if so what were the resulting flowers like.thanks

[rkundalini]

Inyan (who is around on The Forbidden Fruit and spiritplants I think) is very much into Brug breeding, hybrids etc, you might like to ask there or him personally. I seem to recall him saying he's never seen a brug set seed without being hand-pollinated... but I saw a brug at the Melbourne botanical gardens with seeds that hadn't been collected, so I wonder... anyway, you can supposedly propagate from cuttings:

http://home.att.net/~perennials/menu.html

I tried it recently though and they just wilted and died. Probably too cold and/or dark in my bedroom. Same goes for the caapi that was to be for you, I'm afraid . I will try it again in a terrarium in indirect sunlight.

[Torsten]

many brugs can be crosspollinated, but it seems that they need to be done by hand most of the time. I will be offering many crosses over the next few months, some of which have never been seen in australia. keep and eye out on the Brugmansia page for latest releases.

[Guest reville]

its been said before but..

totsten is da man!

[Torsten]

Hmmm, I was hoping that phrase died with the deletion of the old notice board

Even though this is probably bleedin obvious to many, I have the feeling that Brugs are self-infertile. Pollinating from one seed grown plant to another produces seed, but pollinating from one cutting to its source plant doesn't.

[Guest reville]

yeah sorry about dragging that up

Anyway im sure theres a few of us out there with brugmansias so why dont we test this hypothesis? and post success or failure

Ill try on the white Brugmansia candida on the courtyard here at uni.

[Torsten]

I did some pollinations last night and saw huge amounts of pollen falling from the anthers. These could easily be collected and mailed, so if anyone wants to join into a pollen swap we should get a project going.

I have suaveolens white and candida apricot.

Looking for another candida (reville?) and basically any other.

[Guest reville]

ok - how does this sound

flick the pollen into a sealable baggie and send in the post - the pollen should survivefor a while in our temps yes??

[Torsten]

Pollen is usually collected in small paperbags, as they are moist and will rot.

Dried this way they should store for a while.

[Guest mulga]

Hey Torsten, I know where there's a 'frosty pink' in the area, well at least it looks like it. Large almost white flowers that change over a day or two to a fairly vivid pinkish colour, from the outer edges of the flower in.

I'll try and remember to see about getting a cutting.

For cuttings they generally aren't too hard, but it's a good idea to remove a fair bit of any foliage, as they can wilt from evaporation of fluid through their large leaves very quickly, and can handle being totally defoliated pretty well too.

[Torsten]

I always take all the leaves oof brug cuttings, with just the tip leaves folded inside each other left on. These will unfold as the cutting roots and is a good indicator for growth.

I would LOVE a frosty pink P--L--E--A--S--E !