Friday, January 13, 2012

Strobilanthes Mystery

Earlier this week I cut off some of the spent flowers of my Strobilanthes gossypinus and brought them inside to get a closer look at them. This morning I found a couple of these outside the bag containing the pieces:
One was over 30cm from the bag they were in. I am assuming they flew out as a result of a seed pod popping open. But is this the seed?

My search for information about the seed was not successful, but Joseph from Greensparrow Gardens sent me a link to this page which shows the seeds (scroll to the bottom) of a related plant, the Persian Shield (Strobilanthes dyerianus). So it looks like what I have here may just be part of the pod, which launches the seed away from the parent. And I haven't found anything that looks like those Persian Shield seeds.

However, I still have a few un-popped pods, such as the one on the left here:
I've also collected up all the remaining flower-heads from the plant, in the hope of capturing at least some seeds. Stay tuned...

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