Lovely!
I have a question for all the Mexipedium growers out there. Has anyone grown this species from seed or are all the plants out there divisions of collected plants? The flowers appear to be rather small. Has anyone been able to pollinate them? Thanks!
Best Regards,
Nik
There must be seed grown plants.. I have seen some Mexipedium for sale at an orchid shown, which were too small and too many and too consistent in sice and health, that I doubt they were divisions. (I did not ask whether they were as I just continued my walk after seeing the price: 150€ each little plant - they were circa 30 plants for sale)@Nick:
I have never seen any xerophyticum flasks, and the fact that they grow rather strongly has helped most nurseries not having to produce seeds or flasks. I myself have pollinated about 10 flowers (at least tried to) but never managed to get a pod. The structures are definitely too small for the human eye to be pollinating by hand (the normal way), so, specialist equipment is a "must" for these flowers.
PS: The fact that this plant carries 3 open flowers and 3 buds on one spike simultaneously and given that the flowers are differently shaped to everything I have seen before, suggest that this is a superior out-cross or a new, improved line of breeding. It would therefore be logical, as mentioned by the Paphman, that this indeed is a seed-propagated plant.
There must be seed grown plants.. I have seen some Mexipedium for sale at an orchid shown, which were too small and too many and too consistent in sice and health, that I doubt they were divisions. (I did not ask whether they were as I just continued my walk after seeing the price: 150€ each little plant - they were circa 30 plants for sale)
or a division of another plant collected in the wild. There is another thread here with alink to a very interesting article regarding populations of Mexipedium in the wild, one of them disappeared due to a big fire and others due to illegal collection (Note: I am not saying that JPMC's plant is wild collected itself, but the possibility of it being a division of a plant different to those originally collected is there)
how big is the plant/ flower? can i get a size reference please?
i like the looks of this one and nice pic:clap:
You're right, not as good - much better!Here's this year's blooms. A bit more robust than last year, but not as good as some I've seen on this site.
Me either - that's super! :drool: :smitten:That's another "first" for me!!! I've never seen xerophyticum with 3 flowers open on one spike. Mine never does more than 2 simultaniously...
This is a lovely plant. Well done!!! What's it growing in?
Thanks.
It's in a 10 inch clay bulb pan with charcoal and sharp sand as the potting medium. This one seems to like to be grown wet (I water every day with RO water) so I water year-round. The moss started to grow and as it grew the plant kept doing better and better so I left it. I will say that it grows very well side-by-side with my cattleyas, just much more water. I fertilize "weakly weekly" with a urea-free fertilizer.
Such a cute, tiny flower!
Interesting how different people grow these. I have mine in diatomite and coconut chips with a little sponge rock thrown in. I learned early on that it doesn't like water like Phrags do -- I water mine once a week.
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