Help me get my plant laid.

February 13, 2009 3:01 PM

How do I pollinate my plant?

I have this house plant. I don't know what kind it is, aside from it being a general succulent, cactus type. Each year it grows this long, lonely flower thing (pictured) and I feel sad for it.

How can I help it fulfill its biological destiny? I've heard q-tips are involved. Do I need to find the female version of it? I apologize for my ignorance in this.

Thanks for your help!

posted by cgs to science & nature (4 comments total)

The male bit will look like yellow grains of salt. You know that stuff you get in lilies that stains clothing? It'll look like that. The female bit will probably appear after the male bit, and stick out more. Get some of the yellow stuff and put it on the bit that sticks out. The flowers will probably open over the course of a few days, so yo should be able to do it multiple times.
posted by Rabulah at 3:17 PM on February 13

I'm bad with succulents, but it looks like a type of Gasteria to me. Although it looks like it should produce a row of flowers instead of just one.

I have two answers to your question:
1) If you really want to pollinate the flower, and it hasn't done so on its own, it is probably an obligate out-crosser (plant-speak for it can't self-fertilize). The species is highly unlikely to have two sexes, so you just need to find another closely related Gasteria and rub a q-tip or (what a lot of plant scientists use) a eye makeup brush in one flower and then the other. BUT
2) the plant's "biological destiny," both in nature and in the greenhouse, is to propagate more by vegetative reproduction rather than sexual reproduction. By which I mean, people or the wind or some other animal tear off a piece of the plant, it dries out a little bit, and then gets stuck back in the soil and grows a new, genetically identical plant. If it is an obligate out-crosser, and you happen to find another identical specimen to your own, it may very well be a clone, and your attempts to pollinate it by hand will therefore not work. So just propagate it by taking bits of it off and be happy with your new babies.
posted by emyd at 3:25 PM on February 13

Gasterias are not self fertile, as far as I know. At any rate, the plant doesn't care- it takes energy to produce seeds. It is just as happy not making them.
posted by oneirodynia at 3:59 PM on February 13

i guess i am projecting ;-)
posted by cgs at 9:56 PM on February 13 [2 favorites has favorites]