I have grown crypts emersed for about a year now and during the summer even had some flower regularly. My question is how do you get the flower to pollinate and produce seeds?
Really the luck of the draw. I had success this past flowering season with naturally pollinating my crypts. I left my vents open on my humidity domes on my outside set ups. I would try to put all of the flowering plants into the same setup to increase the odds of pollination. I had 4 see pods out of hundreds of flowers. I know there are ways to artificially do it. You can research it but it's very difficult. You have to catch the flower on the exact right time to pollinate. I know it takes a day or 2 for the flower to mature to where they can be pollinated. What the flower does is it attracts the bugs into the flower and when they are able to be pollinated they close off from the inside and do not allow the bugs to escape and if they have pollen on them from other crypts then pollination occurs. When my plants flower there are swarms of bugs. I have a seed pod on my C. becketti right now that I know was likely pollinated by a C. spirialis. Time will tell on what that plant is going to look like.
I tried to pollinate a few flowers with no success. I saw a blog about how to do it and they said you have to catch the flowers at the right time and then you can cut the side of the spaeth you want to flower and insert the pollen from another plant into that hole. I tried, no luck. I know that window is very small like only a few hours. If you find anything make sure to post a link.
Wow, did not know the window of opportunity was so small. The information is great to know though, thanks. I have been trying to find info for a while now with very little success. If I find anything I will let you know.
Yea it's pretty much impossible. When I found my first one I was caught by surprise. It was like winning the lottery. I easily had hundreds of flowers and only 4 were able to sexually reproduce. I am going to try to colonize a tank with fruit flies before the flowering season starts and when I get some flowers put them into the setup and see if I can't get any to pollinate. The way I envision it is 1,000's of fruit flies! LOL.
Sounds like a good idea actually. You could get the flies to reproduce in a jar full of rotting food then put the jar in your dome setup. Might be one way to try it. Hope it works for you. Might give it a try myself.
Bastmeijer also talks about some crypt varieties being hybrids with sterile pollen. Even if you do everything correctly, you aren't going to get any seeds.
You can find out about some of them on Jan Bastmeijer's site. He has a table of pollen fertility as indicated by percentages of pollen that are stained by the dye, cotton blue.
Anyone know how to extract seeds from crypts? 
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