Tiny Tubers, probably Sinningia Sellovii

 Sometimes interesting things "pop up" in the plant room. One such thing, which has done this before.... is most likely Sinningia sellovii. It's an outdoor-growing, reasonably-hardy, very enthusiastic producer of fertile seeds.

I could see the little ones starting to form and did not clean this mat untill they were large enough to move to their own pot.

Look by the tip of the tweezers. Can you see the tiny tuber? No matter how small the Sinningia, they seem to start forming their tubers quickly.

This helps them in times of stress and drought. 

 I moved all the little plants/tubers by taking the tweezers and very gently lifting them and putting them into dampened soil. (Label the pot, they always seem to look nothing like you remember in a month.)

Because the babies are so tiny at this point and somewhat fragile, putting them under a dome or using a little "baggie-tent" keeps them humid and happy.

Questions??
Comments???

PS: you can't kill S. sellovii

Mystery Tubers From Seed

I'm always intrigued when I go into the plant room. Almost every visit provides something interesting to look at or find that I wasn't necessarily expecting. This time was no different!

I mat water in my trays and I haven't changed the mat as often as I usually do because I was seeing some seedlings growing on the moist surface. (You might have noticed that...)

 I was curious to see if I could get the seedlings parted from the mat without tearing off all the roots. When the plants were very small I didn't have much success so I waited a little longer thinking that with a little more top growth, I might just be able to separate them.

I came to find a sweet little surprise!

The baby plantlets in this tray all have tubers. You  can see the small, tan, rounded little lumps where the roots start? Those are in fact the small tubers forming already.

I've put a few of what I extracted into Solo cups and they seemed to take the transition with grace. I'll grow them out and see what it is that I actually got. Surprise!  

Questions??? 
Comments??

Some pictures of S. leucotricha to show the flowers on a mature specimen.

Showing the whole plant in a 6 inch pot. There were 7 stems with flowers open.
Click on a picture and open in a new window or tab, the larger image above has one flower in focus so you can see the hairs on the flower. The one below shows the hairs on the leaves.


This plant stayed in bloom for two months, from first flower until the last ones faded.
It is at least 5 years old. For the last several it has been in a greenhouse and had spent some summers out on my balcony behind a 40% shade cloth. The balcony gets full sun from around 10 am until 2 pm. In the greenhouse it gets about 50% of full sun in summer. It blooms about twice a year.
See the next post to see seedlings and a tuber being repotted.

December 23, 2010
Chas

I received three comments, here are the
Replies:
I took the photos. Please ask permission to use them. I'm thinking of printing one for an exhibit, to show what the species can do. Hopefully the seedlings will be on the sales table this spring.
I'd like to make this species available for everyone who wants one.
There also may be seedlings of S. reitzii and iarae.

My sinningia potting mix starts with the usual gesneriad mix of equal parts perlite, vermiculite and good Canadian peat moss. I add one part or more perlite and/or turkey grit for drainage, and a little charcoal for good luck. I use both the small and the coarse perlite, it all seems to work.
I put extra drainage material in the bottom of the pot, and sometimes use an orchid pot for the extra drainage holes.
I see the roots growing better in the faster draining mix. Clear pots are just so I can see the root system growing. Clay pots dry faster than plastic.
I prefer to use a pot 1 inch wider than the old pot. When I've gone from a 4 inch to a 6, or a 6 to an 8 inch pot, some of the tubers have rotted. The new soil stays wet a long time, and it takes a few months for the roots to fill the new soil. Once they do, the plant is fine.
That is one reason not to repot until the tuber fills the pot. We water heavily and often, so overwatering is always a risk. If you water only as the pot is starting to dry, you can use a more moisture retentive mix and repot before the tuber is pushing out the sides of the pot.
As always, what works in your growing conditions is best.

RO water has almost all the minerals removed. Jerry Fischer at Orchids Limited tells us to add 10% tap water to add back enough calcium, magnesium and trace minerals. Or add a little fertilizer - he sells his excellent blend as Green Jungle. U of Michigan formulas for RO water are fine. I can wait much longer to repot plants when using RO water. Also you can put a little agricultural lime or dolomitic lime in the soil mix.
I found the species sinningias grew fine with tap water in St Paul or with the RO water. If you're using tap water, I would flush the pot with plain tap water every couple months to remove mineral build-up.

Interesting Stuff Continued or Sinningia Tubers, and 'Prudence Risley"

 On November 27th, 2010 the post for that day was showing the progress of some of the Sinningias and other things that were being propagated.

You will note the tuber and the roots forming on this Sinningia.

 Here is another Sinningia that is doing something just a bit different than the first. It's putting out some leaves as well as roots. I think that there is a tuber forming but it's smaller than the tuber in the first photo.

Now this is a tuber being formed! Here is 'Playful Porpoise' making a rather large and robust tuber after only 32 days in a small starter pot filled with perlite and vermiculite. It's been watered with a urea-free orchid fertilizer periodically also.

And lest we haven't praised the Sinningia 'Prudence Risley' enough, it decided to BLOOM in it's starter pot, while forming the tuber you can see at the base (surrounded by the new and rather extensive root system.)


Any comments to share with the gang today???

Propagation by Cutting Tubers into Pieces

We are extremely fortunate to have guest author, Dale Martens, explain tuber division in Sinningias by cutting them into pieces. This is a method that most of us have not tried before!


Dividing Sinningia Tubers by Dale Martens

 

"What I'm about to say is from my own experiments and others may have had different experiences.  You have to make sure there's a couple of different growth areas on the sinningia tuber.  See the photo showing two areas of new sprouts on one tuber. Cut between those with a sharp knife. Some people let a callous form on the cut areas by leaving it out in the open on a shelf for a while, but I don't because often the little sprouts wilt terribly, particularly on micro or mini sinningias.  I plant them immediately with moist perlite on the wound area.

What surprises me is how large those micro-miniature sinningia tubers can get!  Often I see there are partial formations of tubers with sprouts, but checking them later, they haven't formed anything that can be separated except with a knife.  So when there is a large bump area with a sprout, I can remove that if what is removed will be at least the size of a pea, and placed it in very moist perlite in an enclosed container.  I put moist perlite around the base of the sprout, too.  The thing is, you need some of that old rough outer "skin" area in order for it to work.  I'm not sure what that's called, but if it were a potato I'd call it the peel.   The roots come out of the top layer or "skin".  So when you cut the tuber, make sure you get plenty of skin layer area on at least one side of the sprout, but it's best if there is skin surrounding the sprout.

In the past I've cut up a gigantic sinningia tuber to experiment. The roots came from the skin not from the starchy callous area. The last photo I included is a miniature sinningia and had no roots coming out of the starchy calloused area when I checked it a couple of months later.  The roots were coming out on the side with the original outer skin intact.

I happen to love to eat raw potatoes without putting salt on them, so I tasted a sinningia tuber.  Not tasty at all.  Not sweet either. I'm sure a lawyer would say I have to announce, "Don't try this at home" because you may have an allergic reaction!  I taste various gesneriad nectar quite a bit out of curiosity, but wasn't allowed to announce that in my AV Magazine Gesneri-Advice column years ago because it was suggested someone might have an allergic reaction...and I agreed to omit that.   Therefore, you're at your own peril eating tubers and tasting nectar!!  I understand some gesneriads are considered hallucinogenic and some are used for medicinal purposes, so do think twice before smoking, eating, or tasting any of them.  I happen to be allergic to a specific Nautilocalyx and broke out in blisters on my fingers.  A friend in Sweden alerted me since she gave me seeds from her plant.  She asked if I had any reaction to touching the plant and I said I got blisters.  She did, too.  I gave a friend Primulina tabacum and he got blisters."

BLOG NOTE: Don't eat your gesneriads. They are like mushrooms, really bad if you're not an expert.