Here's an off topic one I've been discussing with Steve. I have a Bulbo. blumei (masdevalliacium) AM/AOS Robin's Scarlet Dancer. My first (and only) awarded plant. It's cool looking and very floriferous. Any way I decided to get some seed going on it, but after several attempts nothing happened. I got hold of a couple pollinia from an unrelated plant and still no luck.

I finally disected a flower because I was never sure I was hitting the stigma and found out that the stigma is actually down a tiny hole at the base of the collumn. So now that I new where the hole was I tried selfing again. Because the target is so small I removed the petals and the anther end of the collumn for better veiwing. Bingo. Got 1 of 2 flowers to produce a capsule.

I tried repeating at least 10 more times to verify the stigma target theory without mutilating the flower, and got no capsule formation.

I have just pollinated two more flowers and removed the collumn tip, and both flowers are producing capsules.

I also removed a collumn tip from another flower (not pollinated). The flower closed up, but is not producing a capsule.

I need to get more pollen from unrelated plants to see if the collumn tip contains an "anti-selfing" property, or is part of the pollination mechanism for succesfull pollination. :shock: :shock: :shock:

That's pretty interesting Rick, and sounds a bit frustrating also. I haven't really delved into any of the breeding side of things, but enjoy reading and learning about the intracacies of orchid pollenation. Heck! I'm having a hard enough time learning about pH! I will have to add evolution to my list of things to bone up on, eventually.