Chamaedorea metallica hen party.

[DavePoole]

Mention of C. hooperi flowering below prompts me to remark upon my plants of metallica that are flowering at the moment.  I have a few growing in light shade in the garden and a larger clump in an ornamental pot on the hearth in my sitting room. The clumps consists of between 3 and 8 individual plants and most are now in spike.  All have turned out to be females with not a single, branched pollen bearing spike amongst them.  I'm not particularly bothered about getting them to seed, but find it a bit strange that they are all female plants.

[ZoneTenNut]

Dave,

I think I have this same problem. I bought a pot of three from Home Depot a few years ago and although they flower, I've never been able to get them to seed.

Roger

[chris.oz]

I had about 6 which were all female,  so once I established that fact,  I specifically looked for and bought some males.

That was the easy part.   Getting them to set seed is actually far more difficult and with 6 females and 3 pollen bearing male plants I got nil seed last season.!

[ZoneTenNut]

Chris,

Thats interesting. What do you suppose is the difficulty?

Roger

[chris.oz]

(ZoneTenNut @ Apr. 10 2007,11:50)

QUOTE

Chris,

Thats interesting. What do you suppose is the difficulty?

Roger

There are supposedly ways to intervene mechanically by removing a sepal from the female flowers and use a fine hair brush. Some try taping a branch of the male inflor to each female plant each day.   Its been suggested to use ants to do the job, but ultimately,  an insect of some sort would probably be ideal,  just like back home !

[PalmGuyWC]

Cham. metallica (and C. Ernesti-Augustii) can be pollinated eaisly, but it has to be done mechanically, and it's kind of tedious. I used to do it by stripping all the petals away with a sharp dental tool. First pollen must be collected.  When the male flowers are a bright orange and have a sweet sent, they are ready to drop pollen.  I would put an envelope under the entire inflorescence and cut it off. I would bend up the bottom corners of the envelope and tape it to keep the pollen from sifting  out. The males usually bloom a week or two before the females.

You have to watch the females closely and when the flowers expand and turn orange and have a sweet odor they have reached anthesis.  They are only receptive for a day or two so it's important to hit them at the right time. With experience, one can tell a day or two before anthesis by color and the fact that the female flowers are opening. The petals are more turgid then and eaiser to break away and when anthesis occurs a day later the pollen is already in place.

Strip away all the small petals being carefull not to damage the pistal in the center.  Then brush the pollen on each pistal with a soft camel hair water color brush. Many times I would get almost a 100% seed set with this method.  You will be rewarded with a bright orange bloom spike with pretty black fruit....and have seeds for future generations.

Dick