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Myrmephytum beccarii - Philippines, exact location unknown


Andreas Wistuba

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  • 2 months later...

These are two photos taken this past weekend of an F1 plant that I selected out of a batch of seedlings that I grew out of my original import from the Philippines in 2007. This plant is two and one-half years old, appears to be polyploid, and has already generated plenty of seedlings of its own, so I'm now into my second generation of artificially-propagated Myrmephytum beccarii. Grown in a bay window in northern California. Ant rubiacs are not particularly know for their showy flowers, but this species is very nice when in "mass" bloom. Unfortunately, my camera could not capture the intensity of the blues, nor the flowers on the oppositive side of the stem, so you'll just have to use your imagination and Andreas' image above for true color reference. The second photo shows a couple flowers fully open. Note the distinctive, six-lobed corollas and jackknife lobes.

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  • 4 months later...

These are two photos taken this past weekend of an F1 plant that I selected out of a batch of seedlings that I grew out of my original import from the Philippines in 2007. This plant is two and one-half years old, appears to be polyploid

 

Hello Jay,

why do you think it's polyploid? Does it grow bigger than the others?

It should be possible to check the surface of this and another one under the Stereo-Microscope. If the cells of this one are considerably bigger than the cells of another plant this also is a good hint to polyploidy. However, to be sure you'd need to stain and count chromosomes. That's usually done from root-tips. 

All the best

Andreas

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Andreas:

 

Thanks for the suggestions. Yes, I am aware that I need to have a lab look at this to be certain, hence my qualifying note that it "appears to be..."

 

The growth differential on this plant versus its held back siblings at this point is absolutely staggering and it is also far more vigorous and precocious than its parent plant. Of the numerous ant rubiacs I have grown to flowering size from seed, certainly numbering into high hundreds of plants at this juncture, this particular individual is the only one that has shown anything like this rate of growth. Just in case it's in a "magic growing position", I just hung one of my kajewskii seedlings right beside it ;^) It will be interesting to see how its seedlings progress.

 

Cheers,

 

J

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  • 1 year later...

Striving towards Andreas' beautiful plant above, here are some seedlings I am currently growing atop a pot shared with N. albomarginata. I received these as seeds from Jay sometime ago, and they seem to do be doing well enough so far. Germination was 100%, so I have a few others scattered about in different locations.

 

23810309402_7b3d5b1bd5_c.jpgMyrmephytum beccarii by Aspidistra Flier, on Flickr

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