Cypripedium acaule

[ATester]

Has anyone here tried flasking Cypripedium acaule? Just curious to find out if anyone has done it.

[montanum]

I have. It is slow to germinate for me this year compared to most other species on the same mix. The only one that is slower is montanum. People regularly get good results with it, though.

Best,
Ross

[montanum]

Thought I would update this post with some new info.

I sowed acaule last fall, with about 1h30m in 0.6% NaOCl on average, and 20m 3% H2O2. Some germinated after about 6 months, which is pretty slow for Cyps. However, the % germination was not great: 1-5%, with one at 10-15%. I have replated them but don't have pictures because they are all too small or have a film on the jars that you can't see through very well.

However, this past September, I noted that one of the totally dormant acaule flasks decided to germinate all at once, 10 months after sowing. As you can see from the pictures, the percent is very good!



I don't know what caused this change, but whatever it was, I like it :-) Rassmussen's book "Terrestrial orchids..." cites that a 5 month refridgeration after sowing enabled rapid germination of acaule. I did do this, but other flasks did not respond this way at all to such a treatment.

They aren't ready to be replated, but within a month or so they will be.

Maybe I'll update this post in another year... when they are ready to be vernalized.

BTW, the medium is Phytotech T839 + .2g/L Ammonium Nitrate + 40cc/L Russet potato.

Best,
Ross

[ATester]

Wow! That's interesting. I wonder what the factors were for the sudden group germination. Did you keep a record of what you did? Or do you think this might be a one time occurence.

Very cool!

And Cyp montanum...gorgeous.

[montanum]

I did keep a record. It spent three months in the fridge from February to April and then from July to August. One month after that second one, they all germinated. Other flasks that were in the same treatment group did not. I have no clue as to the factors that determine such an occurance. I have heard from other Cyp flaskers that they have had similiar oddball germinations where the flask just sits for 6-12 months and then the seeds all go at once.

By the way, all Cyps need total darkness for germination and growth until they are planted out. They are brought into the light only as long as it takes for me to snap a picture.

Anyone else flasking Cyps on here?

Here's a replate of a flask that was sown at the same time as the acaule, but actually germinated normally. It's Cyp flavum.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...lavumclose.jpg

Best,
Ross

[dsm]

Wow, this is very interesting.

What about post-flask culture? Is anyone at all having any luck with them indoors? Everything I see so far relates to outdoor culture.

I used to "visit" them as a child accompanying a neighbor on flower & berry-picking trips, so I have a very good unconscious sense of what they need in the outdoors, I can "smell" ladyslipper habitat, but now I live in Texas and would have to construct a mini-habitat. It's a long way off, but an interesting thought-experiment for my fantasy greenhouse.

An old walk-in fridge from a restaurant might be an important part: the entire soil base and companion-plant selection could be wheeled into it for an artificial winter.

Then there is this bit from the last chapter of the book "Orchid Fever" that really hit me strong: the part about the role of an old rail bed in facilitating a roadside growing frenzy among these orchids. When I was a child there was an abandoned old railroad bed called the "Grand Trunk" that was famous because it was a massive failure back in the Great Depression: no train ever ran on it, and the rails were either never laid on the finished bed or they were pulled up for salvage. It ran through a cut in a hill near a pasture, and there were two 20 or 20-foot steep banks along either side for a long ways, with chokecherries and a lot of other small trees, some white pine and some oak saplings, all leaning over it. The stone bedding was buried way down in the soil and the wooden tyes were perfect rectangles of rotted creote-soaked wood in the soil.

Those pink Lady slippers used to blanket that hidden railbed.

This memory, coupled with hansen's description of the habitat in Orchid Fever, gives a very clear picture of what they would need as a soil enviroenment that can support their fungus pal, etc.

The crucial question, I suppose, is how many cubic feet of soil habitat are necessary for a few plants? Can one do it in a big tree-planter, maybe with a choke-cherry or similar companion tree overshading the orchids? Something like that could easily be wheeled into a walk-in fridge.