3 January 2009
Fraileas are go!
Posted by Stuart under: Cacti; Propagation .
I’ve posted before about sowing Frailea seed fresh - well, the seed I set in October was almost completely successful; only Frailea horstii v. curvispina struggled, and I now have hundreds of the little blighters.
Some took a week or two to germinate, but several species were up very quickly indeed, and I was curious to see whether this was a pattern that would be repeated if I planted another selection of species. I knew that the seed was freshly produced last summer, so all that remained was to get them sealed in their plastic bags and wait.
Going along with the principle that you can never have too much of a good thing, I sowed all seven species listed in the first of my “seeds to be sown” post on New Year’s Day:
28 hours later, I went to inspect other pots sown previously, and ended up taking these photos. As before, there are already newly-germinated Fraileas putting in an appearance.
Above left is a batch of Frailea pulcherrima, and below left Frailea columbiana. At the time of writing a handful of Frailea pumila have started germinating as well.
It just goes to show how well-adapted these plants are to reacting to the right conditions for germination. They are tiny though, so you’ll need to click through to the bigger images to see them!