Dioscorea elephantipes, 1 year + 11 months
Two perfect leaves popped up from one of my Dioscorea seedlings. The second seedling is waking up too.
Tag: dioscorea elephantipes
Dioscorea elephantipes, 1 year + 1 month
Little cracks are already forming on the caudex. I haven’t had much luck with nursery-bought Dioscoreas (only the D. mexicana is alive.. I think), but the seedlings are thriving!
Dioscorea elephantipes, 11 months
This baby now has two leaves! The little seedling in the back is slowly waking up. It’s hard to spot, but it now has a 2 mm vine.
Dioscorea Elephantipes, 9 months
The first leaf sprouted after this Dioscorea seedling’s first dormancy! If you watch closely, you can spot another plant in what seems like a constant state of dormancy (dormant since spring).
Dioscorea Elephantipes
You know that “throw all of your money at the screen” feeling you get when you finally spot the thing you’ve been looking for?
This Dioscorea Elephantipes showed up on my local florist’s website and I almost let out a squeal in front of my coworkers.
Did squeal a little inside when I saw the price tag, but I took him home without a second thought!
Update on the caudiciforms
Dioscorea elephantipes, 5 months + 2 weeks
Ibervillea lindheimeri + Trochomeria macrocarpa, 6 months
Caudiciform update yay
Dioscorea Elephantipes
Another Dioscorea Elephantipes seed germinated! I’m not sure if it germinated from the seeds I planted 6,5 months ago or the new batch (sown 2 months ago). Either way, I’m so excited! The first pic is my 5 months + 2 weeks old D. Elephantipes seedling compared to my D. Mexicana. The caudex is now around 7 mm in diameter.
I’ve been trying to keep it from going into summer dormancy by minimizing the amount of direct sunlight, but I think it’s inevitable at this point.
EDIT (June 6, 2017): Yeah, it went dormant and lost its leaf. Hoping it’s big enough to survive until it decides to wake up again.
Ibervillea Lindheimeri
The bottom left pic shows the caudexes on my 6 months old Ibervillea Lindheimeri seedlings. I’ve been showing you the odd caudex on the left, but as it turns out, the one on the right was much bigger – at least 2 cm in diameter. It won’t be long before I have to repot. There are 5 seedlings in this pot.
Trochomeria Macrocarpa
I haven’t been able to dig up any of the other caudexes without removing half of the soil from the pot. Just this little guy on the bottom right pic, who is looking rather sad with only one leaf attached to its stem.
Dioscorea elephantipes, 2 months + 1 week
165 days after sowing and still only 1 out of 12 seeds germinated. This little 2 months old seedling has developed a caudex the size of a pea already.
I decided to change my germination method, hopefully to speed up the process a bit. I dug out all of the seeds I could find (found 4, but one went down the drain when I cleaned them over the sink..) and went for the “wet tissue in a plastic bag” method.
EDIT (April 10 – 2017): Received 3 additional packets with 18 D. Elephantipes seeds and placed 6 of the new seeds in the wet tissue today.
Dioscorea elephantipes, 1 month
Repotted the one seedling that germinated a month ago while I experiment with the rest of the seeds (one pot under grow lights and one in a shaded area).
This little guy already has a tiny little caudex!
Dioscorea elephantipes, 1 day
– aka the coolest caudiciform I’ve seen.
We’ve got germination! It took 39 days for the first seedling to show up, but I’m so glad the seeds didn’t turn out to be duds. So far 1 out of 12 seeds germinated.
Method:
They were all sown 1 cm below the surface of the soil (a random mix of aquarium sand, cat litter, pumice, leca, lava rock, zeolite and a tiny bit of peat) and covered with a plastic bag to ensure high humidity. They’re placed under a grow light set to 11 hours with temperatures reaching 25-30° C.
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