365Caws is now in its 14th year of publication, and was originally intended to end after 365 days. It has sometimes been difficult for me to find new material, particularly during the winter months, but now as I enter my own twilight years, I cannot guarantee that I will be able to provide daily posts. It is my hope that along the way I may have inspired someone to a greater curiosity about the natural world. If so, I can rest, content in the knowledge that my work here has been done.
Saturday, July 18, 2020
Five-Leaf Akebia Fruit
Day 279: The fruit of the Five-Leaf Akebia (Akebia quinata) is an odd-looking thing, and as far as I've been able to determine by reading and experimentation, entirely without gustatory merit. So why do I cross-pollinate my two vines every year? Because I can. Earlier this year, I reported that I thought I had been successful in fertilizing white female flowers with pollen from the purple males. Regrettably, the pods which began to form dropped before they reached the diameter of a pencil. Theoretically, the transfer should work that direction, but to date, the only plant to set fruit has been the purple one, and that only after I had hand-pollinated it with the white. Still, we take our successes where we find them, and in another corner of the garden, the kiwis have declined to be "self-fertile," also starting to set fruit, only to drop it before the berries began to swell. In contrast to the Akebia, kiwis are a crop I wish to successfully cultivate for the table. I may have to plant a pair (male and female) of a different "hardy" variety.
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