365Caws is now in its 16th year of publication. If I am unable to post daily, I hope readers who love the natural world and fiberarts will seize those days to read the older material. Remember that this has been my journey as well, so you may find errors in my identifications of plants. I have tried to correct them as I discover them. Likewise, I have refined fiberarts techniques and have adjusted recipes, so search by tags to find the most current information. And thank you for following me!
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
Because I Can
Day 200: As far as edibility goes, the fruit of the Akebia vine has absolutely nothing to recommend it, or none that I've been able to find. I've tried sucking the purportedly sweet pulp off the huge, abundant black seeds, but found it to be almost tasteless and definitely not at all sweet. I've tried stir-frying slices of the pods, but again, thought the end product was bland and insipid and not even worth using as filler. That said, here I am again, paintbrush in hand, tickling pollen from one plant to the other in a repeat of the horticultural amusement I've done for the last two years. Why? Because I can.
There's something to be said for achieving cross-pollinating by hand even if the fruits themselves are unrewarding. I've learned to recognize the symptoms of receptivity in the female flowers (a sticky fluid develops at the end of each stigma) and the presence of ripe pollen on the males. So far, I have only been able to make a one-way transfer successfully: pollen from the white variety to the females of the purple one, making me wonder if the male flowers of the purple variety are sterile. Its stamens drop when I touch them with the paintbrush. The experiment continues, and if nothing else, it keeps me amused.
Labels:
cross-pollination,
Five-leaf Akebia,
gardening,
hand pollination,
vines
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