Crossing Waterlilies

Last month, before I was away for trips, my 2 of waterlilies were blooming continuously: white and purple ones. So, I did some research about how they propagate sexually, I just wanna know if one day I can make unique hybrid.

Based on what I read on WGI website, I started to cross them. Here is what I did:

white flower as pollen donor (male) / purple flower as recipient (female)

I took pollens from white flower (1-2 days old), and place it into the nectar-bowl (stigma) of newly bloomed purple flower. Sometimes I drank the nectar before the pollination process, leaving it damp enough for the pollens to stick on.

the pollination process

 The next day, the stamens will curl to cover up the stigma, you can no longer see the bowl. I guess that’s when the magic happens.

what it looks like next day after pollination

Within a week, I checked the sinking flower if they rot or swollen. If they rot, the pollination failed. If they sunk and have curly stem and swollen butt, it’s a good sign that the pollination have occurred. Since I want to collect seeds, I put a clothbag. The butt will get larger and larger until ….

top left clockwise: See the diff on non-pollinated and pollinated flower / Pollinated flower has larger butt-size / Pod placed in clothbag to ease seeds collection.

I don’t know what happened next, cos I wasn’t around for a month. When I came back that night, I dipped my hand to check the clothbag (it was dark), I was so disappointed not to feel any pod in the bag. I can feel mushy stuff in it. I thought the whole pollination has failed.

The next morning, I went to check again, and guess what I found! The seeds have sprouted inside the bag! I missed the pod stage. The seeds already released from the pod, and sprouted into little plants. Oh, so many of them. Too many!

left-right: They sprouted inside the bag // handful of them // placing them in dirt

Then I removed them into a new pot, tried to dip them slightly inside the dirt. But they kept floating around. I hope I didn’t hurt them. Really hope they’ll stay alive and grow well.

Now I am away again, I hope when I come back next month, they’ll give me nice surprises again J

Note:

I guess there are some differences between my experience and what’s written in the website. I couldn’t argue about the exact period for pod stage, and sprouting age. But I know that it all happen within a month only, and I didn’t do any special treatment (cold-storage period) to stratify the seeds. They just sprouted.