Bat Flower Frequently Asked Questions
This
page has been created in response to the numerous inquiries I receive every
year from individuals who get these rare plants and then are not really quite
sure how to keep them happy. I sympathize very much with these people, I
myself spent thousands of dollars on these plants and their seeds and dozens
of them went on my compost pile before I learned a few things about what they
prefer for growing conditions. This page is dedicated to the carcasses
of Tacca plants gone bad.
----- Original Message -----
From: Thompson Sam-EST013 <Sam>
To: <sleepy_oaks>
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2001 3:46 PM
Subject: White Bat Flower
> Do you have any White Bat Flower (Tacca) Plants for sale?
> thanks,
> -Sam
>
>
Sam,
I'm sorry, I don't have any white bat plants. They don't bloom but once a
year provided the previous years seedpods/flowers have been removed. The flowers are bigger- to 12 inches across with 28 inch tentacles,
about 22 tentacles per flower. After mine are done blooming, I let the
seed pods mature fully with intents of sowing them. The last batch of
seeds had been on the plant for 27 months! Then I watched a squirrel run up a
tree with the last one. Little bastard just sat up on a branch and ate them in
front of me, not caring that I was throwing steak knives at him... They do best when allowed to grow into 50
gallon specimens as a single multi headed clump from a single starter plant.
If you want show quality stop traffic dead blooms on them, never, I repeat,
never divide them. But as for a source, I've scoured most of Florida and
can't find but a few, and at that, mostly in private collections or in the
range of $100 & up for 12 inch plants. The
Tissue Culture Laboratory Cloning Companies were fooling around with them in
the labs and growing houses but have pretty much quit because only 7% at best
of the whole crop would grow out for them. The White ones rarely
set fertile/viable seeds. Bat plant seedlings or clonelings from
babies to forever should not physically touch one another. If they
do, frequently what happens is one will die off to allow the other one to
grow. I hope you find one somewhere, maybe there is a botanical garden
within 7 hours of driving time in one direction from your residence. If so,
they may have memberships, with which you can attend their overstock rare
plant sales. Sometimes they show up there. Be expecting to pay
from $65 for a non blooming 8 inch potted single specimen on up. Hope
some of this helps you in your success.
Dave
Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2002 9:26 AM
Subject: Tacca Chantrieri Andr
Kerkrade, 02-01-2002
Dear Dave,
Before I get starter I would like to wish you and your loved ones a very
happy new year!
About a month ago my wish came through. My friend bought me a "BATFLOWER"
.
At that moment she had 8 flowers which just reach the point of blooming. The
salesman literally broke more then 10 leaves of.
The minute I came home my Batflower got a bigger pot with a layer coconut
fibers, little hydroballs and a big layer of ground. I also
made sure there was always enough water.
My plant stands halfway my living-room. Daylight enters through a very large
window at the south side of the apartment. Daytime temp. 20degree Celsius and
nighttime temp. 14/15degree Celcius. The air is very humid, 85/90.
This is my problem.
About 2,5 weeks ago my plant was ready to open it beautiful flowers. There
beards already started to change there colours from bright green to dark
purple/black. And then.......!?!
All the flowers started to dry out.
I think you've already guessed it, what am I doing wrong?
PLEASE HELP ME!!!!!!!!!
I've tried to find any information in books and the web, but because of it
rareness it's very difficult.
My plant and I would be very grateful for any help you can offer us.
Sincerely,
Yvonne Fischer
Netherlands
Hi Yvonne
Is your plant in a greenhouse, with controlled
high humidity?
Was it grown under artificial lighting before you
received it?
Mine are not blooming now, it is winter here. It
is not natural for them to bloom in winter.
Why did you repot it when it was doing fine?
Why did you fix something that was not broken?
Never repot a blooming plant of any kind.
Wait until it is finished blooming, then repot it.
Your plant has figured out that it needs to make
more roots to fill the pot.
It is making more roots now, so it is aborting its
flowers.
Bat flowers grow in soil. Not in coconut palm
trees. They are terrestrial plants. They are not epiphytes like orchids.
Hydroballs do not occur in the wild places in
Malaysia where bat plants grow.
Keep it out of drafts. They like still air.
They like medium to bright light but never direct sun.
The flowers are finished. It is too late to save
them. Repot it again and throw away the coconut stuff.
Use a high quality soil with NO peat in it.
Neutral to slightly acid pH.
If possible, get a transplant aid that contains
Vitamin B. If such a product is not in your area,
send me your shipping address and I will send you
some SuperThrive, a transplant aid I use for everything.
Do not over water it in the winter, it needs to
dry out in the soil a bit more than when it is actively growing. This
does not mean treat it like a cactus; it just does not use as much water now
as when it is actively growing.
While it does not go dormant, it does rest.
If roots are damaged during repotting, the damaged
parts should be removed with sterile blades. Or the damaged roots will rot in
the soil. The rot may also enter the living damaged tissues.
Sterilize the blade between each cut so pathogens
from one part of the plant do not affect another part of the same plant.
to sterilize your blade, either hold it under a
flame/ fire for a couple of seconds,
or wipe it off with alcohol.
Do not fertilize until Spring, April 1 at the
earliest.
When watering, add a cup of hydrogen peroxide per
gallon of water.
Hydrogen Peroxide = H2-O2, or Spanish Water.
The extra oxygen will kill fungus spores and encourage roots to grow.
I hope this helps you and your
Tacca.
Good luck with all your gardening activities.
Sincerely,
David
[The following message originated at Garden
Web]
RE: Bat Plants
| Greetings, reading, scrolling, etc. It's been a good couple of
years, except for that moment watching a squirrel take the last seed
pod off the T. nivea alba and go up a tree, then eat it 20 feet
above my head. I'd been watching those 3 pods get bigger and bigger
for 27 months. They were the size of momba-jomba pickles. Anyone got
a recipe for Squirrel Pie?
Some of the hybrids have come into bloom this year for their
first time. The T. plantigeana X T. chantrerii are a little on the
small size as far as the plants go. They seem more compact, like
plantigeana (points off for spelling, I'm a gardener, not a
scientist) and the flowers emerge green-chartreuse, then over a
pariod of 3-4 weeks they turn deep dirty brown; nearly black but not
quite. They also seem eager to make gobs of seeds; pods get fat
quickly.
Regarding the difference between T. integrifolia and T. nivea
alba: Nivea Alba emerges with snow white bracts, which slowly age to
have green veins. It is a shy bloomer; It will not bloom if it has
any seed pods developing. Seed pods take 28 months to mature, like
baby whales. The foliage is a little lighter than integrifolia, and
the leaf stems stay light green, even in high light.
T. integrifolia has bracts which emerge white but fade out to
dirty brown or muddy purple. The leaf stems are usually suffused
with a purplish-burgundy overlay. Straight integrifolias' have white
tentacles which tend to age darker into purplish ranges. (T. nivea
alba tendrils stay white). Integrifolia is a fast grower, and is
easily cloned in the lab. It is becoming kind of, dast I say,
common. Well, skipped around enough there.
Tacca plantigeana is a dwarfy little plant to about 14 inches.
The flowers are green, as are the bracts. Then there's that bland
gruel-food from the 50th state called 'Poi'. It's a Tacca also.
Dopey little tuber. Freaks out and goes dormant if it gets below 60
degrees F. Mine is dormant about half of every year. Got mine from
Dewey Fiske, who has herds of rare living treats. Waited for 5 years
to see it bloom. What a disappointment. You wouldn't know it's a
Tacca unless you were severely addicted to the genus and slightly messed
up obsessive compulsive in your plant collecting habits.
Ugly little nothing. Threw that sucker on the compost heap. Will get
some more pics online one of these days. If you have a variety not
listed herein, I can't possibly live another day without it.
Addictedly, dave
|
Then Bill wrote me this:
Dave,
I think most of us that post on garden web are a bit addictve, messed up, or
obsessive compulsive. I have seen your name posted quite a few times for bat
plants, and you seem to be the expert. I am wondering how you came about
with the 28 months for the seeds to mature? I have been leaving the seed
pods on the plant for a long time as I had heard it took a while for them to
mature, but I am not sure I ever waited that long. Of course I have had
mixed results with germinating them so that may be the difference. Do
all the varieties take that long? I have germinated the black bat
plant, and the white just bloomed, so hopefully the seed pods will develop.
So, you are saying that I can't harvest those seeds until late fall of 2005?
I think that squirrel would have died in my yard.
Bill
Hi Bill, Thanks for scribbling me a note.
Average seed maturations for Tacca are as
follows:
The T. nivea alba seeds take 28 months on
average; the T. plantegiana seeds take anywhere from 6-10 months; the T.
chantrerii usually take from 9-12 months, sometimes up to 18 months; the
T. integrifolias are anxious to get their babies spurted out so they only
take 6-8 months.
Many seed growers (usually independent
individuals who grow their plants just to obtain seeds for selling to big
seed companies or sell on eBay) open their seedpods prematurely, and then
in an act of tragedy and ignorance, allow these not-fully-developed seeds
to dry out. The drying out of a premature seed = a dead seed. Many people
are fooled into purchasing these dead seeds; they might as well plant
pebbles. Don't trade the cow for some magic beans.
These are not absolute times; Light, water,
and temperature also play major factors.
Another method which has
been particularly useful is from an article in some magazine on
hybridizing Irises, which I adapted to batflowers, and to many other
plants. It is especially useful for attempts at creating bi-generic
hybrids, you know, crossing 2 unrelated things such as a ligustrum and a
peace lily, Ivy & Aralia (X Fatshedera) or African Marigolds with
Martha Stewart (it's been done; you get a white rap musician).
If hybrid seeds tend to be aborted by the
mother plant, as often happens, especially when bi-generic hybridization
is attempted. The seed pods can be opened 'manually' and the fresh green
seeds then sown. Many hybrid seeds are dumped by the mother plants; while
the pollen and the egg got together and started a beautiful new life,
somewhere along the way momma realizes that this baby is a bad idea, and
the pod where baby is opens prematurely, da-boomp. The seeds should have
the nubblet where the seed attached to the tissue of the mother plant
pressed into the soil. The top of the seed should be left above the soil
surface. The seed can then go on obtaining nutrients and water from the
soil, while photosynthesizing through the green part which is exposed.
Mist/fog is the only practical way to water such experiments; droplets of
water bury or move the seeds around.
This method is best utilized for larger
seeds, say the size of a small pea and up. I suppose tiny seeds
would/could be done this way but I've never tried, because I value my
eyesight for more than just the moment.
At any rate, any seeds can be grown this way.
I have also found this method useful for starting the native Coral Bean (Erythrina)
from seed; Just as the seed pods start to turn from green to yellow,
indicating they will bust open in another 6 weeks or so--I remove the
green seeds and plant them, green. Do not allow them to dry out or you'll
get the typical germination over a period of 40 years thing going on.
Planting seeds while freshly removed from their pods and still green
results in uniform germination, and this is handy indeed if you are
actually trying to get a uniform crop of whatever started. This can be
applied to many fruits and vegies and other ornerymentals as well. For
seeds such as squash, remove the seed from the 'shell'/casing. Be careful
not to damage the seed during this process. Sometimes a pair of gloves
with the "secure grip" rubberized drizzled finger coatings stuff
on them works well, especially for slippery seeds, or when you're doing a
whole mess of seeds where your fangers would normally get slickery.
Hopefully I remembered to answer your
questions in here somewhere, this sat around in the drafts folder for
awhhile.
dave
Be sure to check our other pertinent links:
Bat Plant Culture
and
The
Sleepy Oaks Bat Plant
Report
Ancestry Message Boards [ Tacca ]
botany-tacca
the next one is an Adobe PDF File.
http--hua.huh.harvard.edu-china-mss-volume24-TACCACEAE.published.pdf
Image of Tacca integrifolia - Picture taken by Kurt Stüber
Mitteilungsblatt August 2001
Open Directory - Science Biology Flora and Fauna Plantae Magnoliophyta Liliopsida Taccaceae Tacca
Painting 61 - Tacca The Butchart Boar
Plant of the Week 10-22-2001
