Purple life and caldera being offered by them for the fall.

Thanks for the heads up Dave. I usually check on most days but not today so you beat me to it.

I was browsing lilies and stuff while cooking dinner and saw them. Thought they were pretty cool. The purple life is like an asiatic Lankon and the other looks like it could be a standout

Purple Life is a very nice lily. Here it gets about 4 feet. I like the fact it has more tango coverage than a lot of what I see as splat or speckling. It's probably my favorite of all of the tango-ish types that have been released. Likely a polyploid.

I noticed that the anthers/pollen looked a little funny. I collected the anthers anyway to freeze.

One of the speakers I spoke with yesterday mentioned the fact that polyploid lilies have pollen that dries up fast. I hadn't thought about that before but it could be true. I recall trying to collect Purple Life pollen last year and very soon after opening, it was unusable. This year, I gently pryed open the flower to collect it and bring them in to dry. It dried nicely indoors and was useable within a few hours.

magnolialover said:One of the speakers I spoke with yesterday mentioned the fact that polyploid lilies have pollen that dries up fast. I hadn't thought about that before but it could be true. I recall trying to collect Purple Life pollen last year and very soon after opening, it was unusable.

I've wondered about this from time to time. We dry pollen to save, freeze or exchange, and it works fine. So what would drying have to do with it. Did the speaker mean that polyploid pollen dies fast? Or does this mean that polyploid pollen dies if it dries(?). Tracy, what was the clue that made you think the pollen was unusable?

What I noticed about Purple Life was the pollen doesn't release from the anther, perhaps an artifact of drying too quickly...? Sometimes I put anthers in a microcentrifuge tube and use a back massager to shake pollen lose. In my experience even that treatment does not release the pollen.

I'll admit I have not closely studied this situation.

There are lilies that I have tried to catch snatching pollen, while I have either been away or just missed the lily blooming and have realized I wanted to use it, risking if it is "dirty" or not. There are lilies I have tried to retrieve pollen early in the game, first day in bloom, that it seems to go from a pre-pollen state, after just opening up, (there is probably some term for this, I just don't know it) to the pollen being exposed to oxygen/air and becoming what I call light and fluffy useable pollen. The lilies I speak of, go from pre-pollen to no pollen able to be retrieved from the anthers.

Two lilies that have done this for me are Purple Life and Stately Red. This year I opened up the flower to retrieve the anthers and bring them inside. Both of them produced useable pollen this way, whether is is less humid conditions or cooler temperatures, I don't know, but outside, they give me nothing. Forever Susan (a Griesbach lily) does this too, though I have not retrieved anthers to bring inside to further test the theory. Lots of Greisbach tetraploid asiatics grown from seed act this way too.

I think what the person explained was the he thought the plant put energy into itself (having more chromosomes to support) and not into pollen production. It is a theory, not known fact.

Interestingly enough, I do not find this to be true for tetra OTs or trumpets. Or at least not the majority of what I have around here where the ploidy is known.

I hope that makes sense. Just found it interesting. Something to think about.

magnolialover said:.... Something to think about.

And dang it, I spelled your name wrong again. But yes, some good things to think about, thank's Tracey.

I've read, too, that there are some "pollenless" lilies that do produce pollen, but just don't release it.

Some other related things to think about...
---- I've watched how many kinds of insects "vacuum up" the pollen on anthers of many types of plants. It's really quite interesting, as there are different methods employed. Some lilies they really go for, others some not so much. At least to my nose, scented flowers don't necessarily get preference. Early morning, before the bugs get to the flowers that day always seems to be the best time to collect pollen overall. In fact there are some lilies that I thought just didn't produce pollen at all (even though they looked like they should), until I got to them early enough and then found it.
--- Just because I can't see pollen on an anther, doesn't mean there isn't any. After all, each individual pollen grain only has two cells, and is way too small to see. With the aforementioned, "wiped clean of pollen" anthers, for example, I can take a "cleaned" stamen and continually dab a stigma (like 20 plus times) and it will eventually color with the pollen. But one thing I have not done (but should) is keep track of the results of these particular crosses.
--- I had never though of ploidy itself being a factor in pollen production. But I did assume that bad parent mach ups would be influential. As you say, seeing something from someone else's point of view is often enlightening.

(Many times, I will take photos of lilies before I mar them with a pollen cap, or remove stamens. While some insects are attracted to the nectar, the "pollen eaters" I have to keep swishing away so I have pollen to use. They work very fast!)

Take my word for it, it works. Just have to make sure there room at the bottom of the tube for the pollen to drop down. It seems to like to restick to the anther.