Seeds on the stem went dry

[Jim McClements, Dover, DE z6]

In a message dated 7/15/05 5:02:40 AM, studiopozzitaubert at TISCALI.IT writes:


> In few days some of my plants that were rippening seeds, plied the stem
> down and it came dry, the same for the seeds which stopped growing and
> became yellowish and dried, the leaves are fine, the plants look fine
> also.
> 
> There are three Sikokianum (?) from Chen Yi, near and very similar for
> size and leaves, they all were setting seeds, but two made what I said:
>   seeds yellowish-dry, and spadix and stem dried, one is developing
> seeds normally, with green color and big stem.
> 
> A Candidissimum in different position did the same, taking the corm out
> of the soil, it was regular, no softness and some white roots.
> 
> A Franchetianum I potted  for getting pictures of  the plant and
> flower, did the same.
> 
> Can anyone tell me something?
> 
> 

When this happens, it generally means that there was no pollination, but tha=t 
the ova were triggered into the early stages of development by some other 
stimulus. In other words, a false pregnancy!

Remember that almost all arisaemas have only male or female flowers on any 
given plant, so that unless you have both sexes of the species (or somethingrelated closely enough to hybridize), viable seeds won't be produced.

Granted, some say that there can be occasional viable seed production withou=t 
pollination by a process called apomixis (comparable to parthenogenesis in 
animals) but I've never seen any convincing evidence of such in arisaemas. I=nfo 
about this should be available in the archives from postings a few years ago=.

Jim





Jim McClements
50 S. Prestwick Ct.
Dover, Delaware 19904, USA
Zone 7a
302-734-2836
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