Horticultural Resources: Seed germination

Finding actionable information on seed germination is perhaps one of the most frustrating parts of exploratory horticulture.

It makes sense that species that don't even have a Wikipedia page will have sparse internet presence.  It also makes sense that difficult to find species will have an even harder time finding actual propagation instructions.  After all, germination information is an interactive thing - knowledge built upon knowing the plant even exists.

What is particularly frustrating however is the surprising lack of information what otherwise should be at least exist somehow.  But likely doesn't.  Germination information for Marula is more difficult to find than it has any right to be, but good luck finding anything on Willughbeia or Wrightia or Tamilnadia.

Over time, I've collected some internet resources that makes everything easier

Useful Tropical Plants: (by far the most pertinent)
http://tropical.theferns.info/

Kew (Royal Botanical Gardens), Seed Information Database: (second most useful)
http://data.kew.org/sid/sidsearch.html

Thompson & Morgan
http://www.ourgardengang.com/Seed%20Germination%20DB.htm
http://ourgardengang.tripod.com/Seed%20Germination%20DB.htm

Tom's Seed Germination Database:
http://tomclothier.hort.net/page02.html

Chilean Species:
http://www.chileflora.com/Florachilena/FloraEnglish/E_Germination.htm

USDA "'Seed Germination, Theory and Practice' by Norm Deno":
http://www.jlhudsonseeds.net/Germination.htm

The Seed Site:
http://theseedsite.co.uk/germination.html

Thymewilltell:
http://www.thymewilltell.com/seeds.html

Boesenbergia Pandurata: Chinese Fingerroot

Got this stuff .... looks interesting.  It's in the Zingiberaceae ginger family, so it's probably relatively easy to grow.  It's also called Chinese Fingerroot.

Here it it coming up a couple of weeks after being put in soil:

Sorry for rotate.  You can see one spike in each pot

Took a few more days, but it got here:

Much more obviously a ginger type

It looks like it's closer to curcuma/turmeric than zingiber/ginger.

A week later:

So it's probably not going to be nearly as large as turmeric plants.

But still interesting to see.

Amazing Gesneriad: Deinostigma tamiana

The Deinostigma is a relative of African violets in the Gesneriaceae family.  Native to Vietnam and southern China.  It was recently removed from the Primulina genus.

The growing inflorescence actually survived shipping:

The leaves have incredibly long petioles, and with higher humidity, might be easier to keep rigid.

They don't like drying out, but in lower light are quite undemanding.  It shares approximately the same placement as the Gloxinella, although in the wild they're probably quite different.

So the bloom is quite pretty, and very clearly gesneriad:

So something for the botanists - this specimen is particularly unique in a weird way - the infloresence actually continues to grow during bloom

Yes that's right - you're probably used to an unopened flower reaching its finally location and then opening.  This specimen decides to hoist it higher ....

Quite amazing, really.

These blooms can stay on for a bit, sometimes a whole week.

This picture is about five days after the previous

The leaves accumulate damage relatively easily, but otherwise the plant seems easy-going enough.

Gloxinella lindeniana: Amazing Gesneriad

I don't have a crazy story behind this one, just found the leaves to be incredible.  It screams "delicate".

Gloxinella lindeniana

While physically substantial enough to be nearly self supporting structurally, the leaves are *really* light, and nearly translucent.  To illustrate how wildly different plant leaves can be, here it is next to a Ludisia discolor orchid:

After it gets tall enough, it starts putting out flowers, or what I first thought were flowers:

It should be noticeable by now just how over-leveraged the roots seem to be.  That tiny little pot can't be more than 2 inches.  I've kept this thing out of direct sunlight and considering what is known about such delicates, I'm assuming it's actually a rather low-light plant.  It's been flourishing in a west window that doesn't actually get sun .... inside.

Those flower things are kinda mesmerizing.

I kinda left it alone for a bit - low light and medium humidity means it's probably slow growing and I'm ok with that.  Oh boy was I surprised:

Huh.  So that really how it flowers.  Gotta wait for the flowers to open.

Here's a different view for the internet crowd watching:

And here finally the bloom opens:

The blooms seem to last a couple of days for me, but I'm not gonna give it any grief.

Time passes and here it looks about 2 months later:

So, it seems to need staking for support - it might actually be etiolated from light level too low even for this forest floor specimen.  In any case, the root system was small enough and non-aggressive enough that all I had to do was transplant the whole soil plug into a general houseplant potting mix.

Minor caveat - for whatever reason, the generic potting soil wasn't sold as "high drainage" the way that cactus soil is.  Put it's a lot lighter and more aerated than what I expected.

I have also never waited more than 3-4 days to rewater Gloxinella.  It is probably not even remotely drought hardy.

Horseradish: Armoracia rusticana

Saw it in the grocery store.  Noticed a couple of little green bumps obviously serving as potential grow points.  Why not?

Kept it in a tall glass, and put it outside in on a shaded porch.  Changed out the water if it got gross.  After a week or so, i found this little green growth:

Notice the water line

Eventually, the leaves flushed out:

I've noticed that compared to carrot, beet, rutabaga and others, horseradish root doesn't seem too vulnerable to water-rot.  I still need to change out the water, but the hard root seems unperturbed by submergence.

At a certain point, it becomes obvious that the root structure belongs in soil rather than pure H20.  Here it is transferred:

The leave margin curl seems to correspond precisely with this transfer.  Due to lowered average state of root moisture, there *will* be some transplant shock, and I eventually lost a couple of leaves.  It's also obviously a bit harder to keep watered.

I've kept it out of midday sun, and despite the supposedly slower growth .... one night it seemed to suddenly double in size:

It's already bigger than this

I'm not sure what my end goal is, but this definitely seems to have been worth the project effort.

Update:  yup, still growing a week later:

Solana melongena: Eggplant: Ratna

"Normal" plants for me are hard.   Tomato, basil, herbs, zucchini, cukes ... etc .... terrible luck.

So I bought a 4 dollar Ratna Eggplant from a local farmers market.  Yay.

Near the beginning:

Nice black loam

Yay it grew flowers

Here.  We.  Go!

So summers here can get a bit too hot if I'm not able to water every day.  It's been attacked by aphids, and I've failed to water it.  It literally looked dead when I checked again.

Soil was bone dry.  Leaves were actually still soft, although looked dead.  Guess what it looked like the next morning?

Honestly, I'm kinda impressed.  This plant seriously wants to live.  And look ... an eggplant!

Gasteria "Flow" pup

I have a coworker that got a windowsill succulent .... and over time it never really died.  It's a Gasteria "flow" and the internet tells me that it's a hybrid between a gasteria and aloe. 
"Botanical name: Gasteria Verrucosa x Aloe Hybrid PPAF" ... something like that.

Of course, I had to tend to it .... and guess what comes up?  A tiny pup detaches too easily, and now I'm stuck holding a piece of this plant.

Not much to it.  I sort of origami folded a paper swaddle for it
Taped it together with .... tape.  Wetted the paper towel from time to time

Over time, the root turned from nothing to this:

Those roots are more durable than they appear but don't risk breakage

Now later it looks like this:

Nice and plump leaves