Saturday, May 8, 2010

Isn't This Awesome?

How about some seeds? These are African violet seeds from a variety named 'Emerald City'. 'Emerald City' is a chimera (a green and white pinwheel patterned flower) and it should be interesting to see what possible characteristics the offspring from the seeds will show.
 The seed pod from off of the parent plant. (Clicking on the photos will enlarge some of them for a better look.)
 What it looks like when you break the pod open. Note how small the seeds look.
 This is a pencil point of an ordinary pencil. The magnification is so great that you can see the wood-fiber of the pencil and still the seed looks small.
 This is the pod opened and it shows you how the seed is laying inside the pod. Think pea pod and how the peas are arranged when you open a pea pod.

The last photo is the largest I can get it magnified, but you can see that the individual seeds have a bumpy surface. I wonder if all violet seeds are bumpy?



As you know, a chimera violet won't produce a "chimera" from a vegetative leaf cutting, but will produce the "chimera" pattern from a blossom stem cutting or a sucker taken from the parent plant. I'm not sure if seed from a chimera will produce a chimera baby. I also don't know if this seed is viable. It was left on the plant till the pods were dry and ripe. Let's see what happens. I would love comments from the club or others.... click on the link and make a comment please.

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