Date: Mon, 21 Jul 97 08:51:00 PDT
From: Kelly Zytaruk <zytaruk@sx.com>
To: Aaron J. Hicks <ahicks@rt66.com>
Subject: RE: Seed-to-bloom?


AJ,

Two good candidates that I have seen are Dendrobium moniliforme.
I purchased a flask of this that had two plants in bloom in the flask.
I believe that they were about a year from sowing.  The other one that
I like, and find to be a reliable RE-BLOOMER in flask is Barkeria
barkeriola. I sowed this seed myself. The first plants started blooming
at approximately 6 months from date of sowing. Some were deflasked
shortly after blooming and they are now having a hard time struggling.
With this bad deflasking experience, I decided to replate the remaining
plants at 3 per flask.  I now have some plants with mulitple growths and
3/4" tall pseudobulbs on their third bloom cycle in flask!  I intend to
keep them there until I can figure out how to keep them alive out of
flask.  I am tempted to pollinate one of the plants in the flask and let
the seed germinate itself on the medium when the capsule splits.  I tried
this once before but the selfing did not take.
If you can find some seed of Barkeria barkeriola, I would love to have
some more plants growing.  They make a great bloom in a bottle.

I have also read somewhere that Coryanthes are supposed to bloom as
early as 18 months from date of sowing. I purchased a Coryanthes seedling
three years ago and it still has not bloomed!

Kelly