Ovaries!

Day 52: Ovaries! I have ovaries! You may recall that roughly two weeks ago, I took my little paintbrush and transferred pollen from a white Christmas cactus to a yellow one. The ovaries of the two receptive flowers are now noticeably swollen. When my husband performed a similar experiment, it took months for the pods to ripen and turn red. As I recall, they hung on the plant for months after that until Bruce's impatience got the better of him and he picked and opened them. They did contain seed, but either he had plucked them before they were fully mature or the seed was not otherwise viable because planting it brought no results. I may not be able to report the outcome of this botanical adventure for a year or two, but at least this phase of it was a success.

The Bizarre Akebi Fruit

Day 353: Consider this an editorial retraction. This year's bumper crop of hand-pollinated Akebi fruit has changed my mind about lack of redeeming merit, if only by a smidgin. I waited for the pods to be fully open (more open than the one in the foreground) before picking half a dozen. By forcing the pulp through a sieve to remove the abundant large black seeds, I retrieved roughly a quarter cup of frothy "juice" which, when taken by the teaspoon, was pleasantly sweet and somewhat aromatic. They're definitely not something you'd want to pack in your lunch, but at least they've proven themselves to be more than just a botanical novelty/pasttime. I would need a few hundred more and a healthy helping of patience before I'd attempt to make them into jelly. I still have only had success pollinating one direction, white-flowered vine to purple. Only the purple one bears fruit.

Extended Experiment

Day 353: As I was preparing to pick the remaining Akebia pods from the vine, it occurred to me that I shouldn't waste the opportunity to see if my cross-pollination efforts might have produced viable seed. To that end, I encased the pods loosely in nylon netting just a few days before they split. As they dry out, the seeds will be caught in the net. The Akebia vine is relatively attractive and semi-evergreen, and despite rumours to the contrary, it isn't likely to propagate to invasive levels on its own, given my limited success at cross-pollinating. If I do get plants from these seeds, it will be interesting to see if they mature and bloom, and if so, which colour will prove dominant. And then? Maybe back-breeding with one of the parent plants or introducing new stock. Lots of possibilities here! Luther Burbank I'm not, but I do know how to graph a Punnett Square.

Second Experiment

Day 297: Despite the fact that Akebia fruits (Akebi) have absolutely nothing to recommend them as edibles, my success at hand-pollinating them last year led me to wonder if I could repeat the experiment with similar results. Testing should never be a one-off. If results are not reproducible, you can't claim success. To that end, when the Akebis bloomed this spring, I got out my trusty camel-hair brush and started checking flowers daily for pollen production and receptivity. Once again, very few female blossoms appeared on the white-flowered vine as compared to the purple variety, and conversely, none of the male flowers on the purple Akebia matured to the pollen-making stage. Consequently, I was only able to transfer pollen from white male flowers to purple females; nevertheless, I got results, and seven Akebia fruits are coming into their maturity. I now know that I waited too late to pick them last year and that the seed/pulp ratio was skewed to the "seed" side of the equation. As for their potential as edibles...well, as a good scientist, I'm going to have to see this experiment through to its conclusion, although I don't expect the final stage to vary from previously recorded data. In other words, "Ugh!"

The Akebia Experiment

Day 343: I'm not to the point of calling the Akebia Experiment a success yet, at least not if the goal was to have ripened fruit, but the cross-pollination certainly worked. The fruits are beginning to turn a lighter green, although they are still hard as rocks. They should be blotchy purple when mature. References say that the maturation period is 40-50 days. Right, yeah, sure. We're well into the fourth month since I tickled their little stigmas with the paintbrush. Admittedly, there might be some latitude between varieties just like there is in corn, tomatoes and a host of other vegetables and fruit, but two whole months? That's stretching this botanist's credulity. I have to admit that it's been fun watching the fruit develop even if I don't ever get to taste it.

Akebia Fruit

Day 288: Even using the proper scientific terminology, it is difficult to write about the process of manual cross-pollination without it sounding risqué. My efforts in that regard are being rewarded with the production of approximately a dozen and a half Akebia fruits of various sizes, the largest of which are shown here. When in the flowering phase, the pistils of this cluster exhibited a heavier production of stigmatic fluid; pollen transfer was much easier to effect because the pistils were receptive. Size of the fruit indicated the number of ovules (seeds) successfully fertilized. These were within easy reach of my paint brush and I transferred pollen to the pistils several times during their period of receptivity. Whether or not the fruit proves to be worth the trouble as far as edibility is concerned, the experiment has expanded my grasp of the mechanics of botanical reproduction and, having seen the phases first-hand, I can now explain the process in intimate detail even if doing so makes my readers blush.