Nepenthes spathulata X (truncata X hamata) My first homemade hybrid!
Hello everyone.
Today is a very exciting day in my HL Nepenthes chamber to say the least. My Nepenthes spathulata’s flower stalk has finally been harvested after 6 months of patience where I waited and hoped that I would get a few fat live seeds from the only two pods that survived from the pollination of a male Nepenthes X Predator (truncata X hamata). The Nepenthes X predator pollen was obtained from Peter D Amato who happened to have some from his clone which just flowered. I’m very excited to see how this cross develops!! As far as I know this is the second created complex hybrid with N. X predator, the first one being with a ventricosa. Although both male and female are some what similar, the fact that 11 out of 300 or so seeds were successfully created means that these seeds could be a very very special combination between a almost sterile male! Two out of 4 seed pods revealed 11 fat and healthy seeds while the other two seed pods failed. The two lucky seed pods that carried on the genes were only able to make about 10-15% of their yield which should have been 60-120 seeds!! These 11 lucky seeds were able to mix their genes in a way that the other seeds couldn’t do while being created! This is what makes growing Nepenthes from seed so exciting! You never know what your gonna get! Anyways, enough talk for now. Time to get to the pics 
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Fatties!! The reason the seeds are so big is because the female must have realized that only these 11 seeds could be allowed energy so the genes would mix and the overies would grow, thus abandoning all the others and honing in on the 5-6 seeds each pod contained. The reason the seeds don’t have much of a winged projection on the ends is because they were just so tight inside the ovary that there was no room for them to go but up LOL. If you look closely the projections twisted in a pattern to conserve space while the ovaries grew to their best size. Some grew backwards which is why they looked like they’ve been snipped. I tried stretching one of the seeds out but I decided not to go any further… if I broke the projection’s tip it would be very bad for the ovary protected inside the “rice bag” so to speak. The seeds were left out an hour to harden up a bit before I prepared the media right next to the female. The projections were still moist and bendy as they had built up tiny pockets of water while winding around in the seed pod.
LOL… the most clever seed of the batch, bending its projections back and forward again to still have a little wind flotation as if in the wild.
After taking some pics and getting some new sterile media I was able to video the sowing of these 11 special seeds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdhpUZoTqxo
Sorry for the talking and all the info… Im just so excited that years of work has paid off in such a cool hybrid mix! Now I can only hope that they will germinate! God speed N. spathulata X (hamata X truncata)! God speed!
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