PalmsNorth.com

These seeds have recently become available, anyone have any guesses as to what species they might be?

Seeds,




Cleaned, (the two small ones never fully developed)




The end the radicle will hopefully be emerging from





Steve

Hope you have better luck with them. I have NEVER had good luck with Zamia seeds.

The smaller Zamia seeds are a little touchy, once cleaned, they only seem to last about a month.
Find some to clean yourself and you will increase the odds, I usually just fill up a community pot with Zamia seeds barely under the surface and cross my fingers



Steve

First signs of life!







Steve

Spectacular close-up.
Barb

Thanks Barb!

I was fortunate enough to talk with the person who made these available, this is a brown emergent form of Zamia amblyphyllidia

Some more info: http://www.pacsoa.org.au/cycads/Zamia/a ... lidia.html


Here's a recent photo,





Steve

great pic Steve. You can see every little hair on that seedling. Are you germinating the seeds and then sitting them on top the soil to root?

Thanks Kent,

These were buried just under the surface, normally they would stay there....
Started them in the converted refrigerator, between 85* - 95*F, and these are growing fast enough to push out of the soil


Steve

Steve,
great photo of the adult zamia in that link.
Seems to be planted in full sun too, which seems a bonus.

The brown emergent sections appear even more delicate than regular ones.
Barb

Noticed a couple more today, these were under the soil yesterday!
(I suppose a lighter mix would help











Steve

As usual, cool pictures.

I wonder just how far a radicle will travel in search of soil?

There must be a limit, and if birds or rodents disturb the seeds, wonder if it'd go, say, a foot?

Yes, it's been a burden to be so darn inquisitive.
I recall my parents sighing a lot when I was a kid.

Barb

Barb,
No real idea
It would keep growing till the seed was depleted, at that point, it's progress would depend on the plants ability to absorb moisture & nutrients from it's environment.

Thinking of epiphytic Cycads, here is a Zamia pseudoparasitica with a 15 meter root!

http://www.cycad.org/documents/Jun-Sep- ... t-True.pdf



Steve

Good point about the seed depletion.

Holy cow, a 15 meter root. That's 49+ feet long!

Cool link, thanks.
Barb

Knnn wrote:Thinking of epiphytic Cycads, here is a Zamia pseudoparasitica with a 15 meter root!

http://www.cycad.org/documents/Jun-Sep- ... t-True.pdf

Speaking of Z. pseudoparasitica, this characteristic of the elongated taproot -- which grows down the trunk of the supporting tree and into the forest floor below -- seems to only happen in certain populations. I have seen trees full of these plants in habitat where none of the plants have such a taproot. Prior to this discovery, it was "understood" that this species loses its taproot to rot early during its development only to be replaced with masses of adventitious roots that grow/anchor into the root masses of surrounding epiphytes like anthuriums, orchids, etc. -- or possibly that the plants never really grew a single taproot to begin with. This is a "paradigm shift" type of discovery that may be one of the most important to occur in the cycad world in many years.

Jody

Jody,

looking forward to hearing more on this! I would like to think we are seeing an evolutionary step


Steve

I really don't think it is that as much as an undiscovered phenomenon that has been happening the same way for a very long time but has until now gone undetected. I think one of the reasons that this particular thing has not been observed (or reported) is that in the tropics there are large vines of different species growing up many of the trees, and the root of a cycad could very easily just blend in and look like one of those vines. The plant in that article just happened to become dislodged and was hanging by the taproot -- which is how this particular characteristic was discovered.

Jody

Still quite an interesting adaptation, can only imagine what it must be like to see these habitats in person.
(closest I've been to the tropics is Florida, and that was over 25 years ago



Steve

Moving along........






Steve

Some updated photos,












Steve

Nice, Steve, congrats.
Barb

Thanks Barb, here's one with a first set of leaves.






Steve

Obviously you give them optimum conditions, Steve, for them to flourish like that.
Beautifully done.
Barb