seedling leaf development

[Diane Whitehead]

It is so discouraging to read Aaron Davis:  "Most seedlings will flower in their third
year but others may take four.  It is possible to produce flowering specimens in two
years from seed, but the growing regime has to be very intense to achieve these results."

I never achieve anything near that, but instead get to look at leaves for many years.
Well, actually, I get to look at one leaf for a very long time.  I have lots of single leaves
that started life in 2008.

I do have some with two leaves, and that is my question:

At what point do the two seedling leaves become supervolute?  I have a couple of
species that are supposed to be (artjushenkiae syn transcaucasicus, and fosteri)
but the young leaves are applanate.  It is possible that I am looking at something
other than snowdrop leaves, of course, as squirrels do mess about in my raised beds.

[ian mcenery]

It is so discouraging to read Aaron Davis:  "Most seedlings will flower in their third
year but others may take four.  It is possible to produce flowering specimens in two
years from seed, but the growing regime has to be very intense to achieve these results."

I never achieve anything near that, but instead get to look at leaves for many years.
Well, actually, I get to look at one leaf for a very long time.  I have lots of single leaves
that started life in 2008.

I do have some with two leaves, and that is my question:

At what point do the two seedling leaves become supervolute?  I have a couple of
species that are supposed to be (artjushenkiae syn transcaucasicus, and fosteri)
but the young leaves are applanate.  It is possible that I am looking at something
other than snowdrop leaves, of course, as squirrels do mess about in my raised beds.

As I understand it artjushenkoae may no longer thought to be a synonym for trancaucasicus by some (or maybe all) though the bible still says it is. I have a couple of examples from reliable source and they are applanate. Confusing aint it !!!!  You also mentioned fosteri this is supervolute and is not as far as I am aware a synonym for either

[Alan_b]

Here are some mixed seedlings I transferred to a pot last year.  So they are at year two, or some possibly at year three if I missed them in 2011.  The supervolute ones are almost certainly elwesii but any such that have two leaves are clearly supervolute.  Much to my surprise, one of the seedlings has produced a flower.  It has not been subject to growing conditions any different from the others.   

[Anthonyh]

I can't help you with those species, but like Alan's my elwesii are clearly supervolute by the time they have 2 leaves, and in many cases their shape is obvious if they have a single leaf, once they are into their second season of growth. I only have this pic of 2011 sown seeds here, but there is (as usual) a lot of variation in size... and they were repotted last autumn so they are all the same age.

it's not relevant to this thread... but I'm rather disappointed as haven't got a single snowdrop seedling showing this year (out of probably 200-300 seed sown in pots last summer) despite having an abundance of tulips/frits/narcissus/camassia etc.     

That looks an interesting flower and an eager plant Alan.

[Martin Baxendale]

Anthony, I've also had very poor snowdrop seedling germination this year, and the same last year. I've noticed that this tends to happen when we get a very mild autumn and mild start to winter. It seems that the seed then doesn't get enough of a cold period to stimulate germination. In years when there's been a cold start to the winter I've always had much better germination. I don't mean necessarily freezing weather, but long and consistent periods of typical autumnal/winter cold weather, as opposed to unseasonal mild spells. When this happens, I leave the pots to see what comes up in the second year and don't try to transplant/pot on the few seedlings per pot that do appear in the first year.

[Anthonyh]

Hi Martin,

Thanks for that, and sorry to hear you've had a poor year as well. I'm sure you're right about the weather, I've been thinking about moving some pots in to a fridge (Norman Deno-style) but decided I'd wait! Because I'm impatient... I have tipped-out a couple of pots and the seeds haven't done anything this year, they are just sat there...    I see you're in Gloucestershire, so I expect we've had similar weather, and it has been mild here with the exception of a separated couple of weeks. I'm nowhere near as experienced at this as you and many others on here, but in the few years I've being growing bulbs from seed, I typically haven't had many germinate when I've kept them for a second year... but I will try! I'm still trying to work out how much impact the wet weather has... many of my snowdrops are surprisingly  late, despite the mild weather, but I won't blame this for the seed failure as everything else is germinating, and they are under identical conditions.

Thanks

[Martin Baxendale]

I find that if the snowdrop seeds are subjected to a mild autumn and mild start to winter then by mid-winter/late-winter it's too late to do anything re giving them low temperatures. During the freezing spell I put them out to get frosted a bit before returning them to the frames on a regular basis, and have done this in previous slow germination years - making sure that they're exposed to the frosts later in the winter - but it doesn't seem to help. Low temperatures in autumn and early winter seem to be essential for stimulating good germination,

[Anthonyh]

That's very interesting. I wait this year, and  have to do some experiments at the end of this year... if it's mild again.

[Alan_b]

I have a raised bed from which I evacuated the snowdrops at the end of the 2010 season.  The bed is too dry in summer to grow anything so it has essentially been fallow thereafter.  Every year since. it has thrown up a number of seedlings (accidentally sown because I did not remove the seed pods) which I removed to pots.  There are no fewer seedlings this year than in previous years, although the seeds must have lain dormant for at least two years before germinating.

[johnw]

Do the seeds need to be planted and have a warm moist period before a cold period?  I see no pattern to G. germination here, G Brush x Rsemary B came up with virtually no cold this autumn.

One Two platyphyllus surfaced this evening!  I suppose that one will only cross with krasnovii and valentinae???   Is there a chromosome count for it?  Since it relishes wet spot I have an inkling it may be a good parent for rot and possibly stag resistance - of course it may never have since a bit of peat in it life.   

johnw

[Martin Baxendale]

John, I've been working on the assumption that galanthus do need a warm moist period then a cold period to germinate and it seems to work - sown as soon as ripe, not allowed to dry out during the summer and exposed to cold (but not necessarily frozen) during autumn and winter.

Some do seem to germinate without much cold, usually the ones that germinate earlier, especially reginae olgae, also ikariae, so I'm assuming those, coming from warmer regions, need less cold. I suppose some elwesii could come from warmer areas than others, depending on their origin, so need less cold.

The flow cytometry work on galanthus shows that platyphyllus and krasnovii have very similar DNA weights so should cross quite easily. Valentinae was not checked as not available at that time so no DNA weight for that. I don't know about any chromosome counts for these species but the standard count for galanthus is 2n = 24, obviously increasing in triploids, tetraploids etc.

[johnw]

That would make perfect sense Martin.  The GB x RB had so little cold I was quite surprised by their emergence, of course the bulk may well come up later.

Counting my chickens I suppose sometime in the future  nivalis x platy might be worth a try.

johnw      - preparing for an historic blizzard.

[partisangardener]

I only have controlled experience with G.plicatus. I kept the seeds with some earth mixed in a pot outside. Just after ripening.
It never dried out because of a plastic bag .
It was quite before any frost (October, I think), when I started to spread them out in a styrofoam box.
All the seeds had already little bulbs with roots coming out and it was quite difficult to separate them This species at least seems to be hypogeal.
The whole batch froze to death in late winter. They looked like grass during a warm spell in January and I was very happy with them. The frost afterwards without any snow covering (more than -20 C° for several weeks), left none. Only the ones outside the box escaped.
The following experiments I did in boxes without bottom. Even worse Winter last year did no harm.

I disperse the seeds now directly after ripening, because I don't like the work when I am too late.
Maybe a small batch in some moss in a plastic bag will show,when exactly they germinate. It must be during summer.
The picture below shows their beginning sprouting, many week before they all died, all Leucojum seedlings of that year died too.  The leafs looked good, but all bulbs were squashy.

[partisangardener]

I had access to a great amount of ripe fruits out of an old garden with thousands of G.plicatus and no other galanthus nearby present. This garden belonged to a 100 years old former hospital and the Galanthus probably multiplied there since this time.
This species is here otherwise quite rare.

Only Leucojum in the more sunny parts of the garden where even more plentiful.
The lady of the house allowed me to collect what I wanted.
In order too keep the seeds viable I mixed them with some damp soil and kept them in a plastic pot.

Other species of G. started only in the past 10 or twenty years in this town. This is Leucojum area. The nearest other G. is now about half a kilometer. Separated by lots of buildings, streets and gardens.

If the other species are also hypogeal shouldn`t germination happen before the beginning frost?