Bromelcairns Bimonthly Newsletter of Cairns Bromeliad Societ Inc. 2014 # 2 P.O. Box 28 Cairns Queensland 4870 Austalia President Bob Hudson 0740533913 V-President Brendan Leishman 0740578604 Secretary Dave Weston 0740578604 Treasurer Lesley Hepburn 0488788892 Librarian Steven French 0740322283 Editor Lynn Hudson 0740533913 Editor Assist. Gail Taifalos 0740392787 Member Concierge Nalda Wilson 0740544825 Pop. Vote Steward Lynn Hudson 0740533913 OIC Raffles Karen Stevens 0740361086 Honorary Life Member - Grace Goode O.A.M. Honorary Life Member - Kay Edington Life Member - Lynn Hudson Life Member - Robert (Bob) Hudson ******************************************************************** Aims of the Society Promote and Develop Interest in Bromeliads through Friendship To Co-operate with similar Clubs throughout the World ******************************************************************** Membership Fee: $15 Single, $25 Family, Country Member $25. $7.50 junior (if not in family membership) Meetings start at 1.pm sharp first Saturday of the month. Please bring a cup and a chair. Library: All books & magazines borrowed are to be returned in good order to the following meeting. If not on wait list, they may be rebooked. Plant Display/Sales: To participate, a member must be financial and circumstances permitting, have attended at least three meetings in the past six months. Where the society is charged a stall fee - 20% of sales are deducted for club funds. No charge venue & meetings - 10% of sales is deducted. All plants to be clean, free of disease, named and price tagged. Show Plants: Must be the property of and in the custody of the entrant for the past three months. For Society Shows the entrant must be financial and have attended at least three meetings during the past six months. Pens, Plant Tags & Pots: available at each meeting. If reprinting article, wholly or in part, please acknowledge Author & Newsletter. Any article &/or Bromelcairns will be Emailed on request to [email protected] Previous issues are on my website www.bromeliadsdownunder.wordpress.com 2 Club Actvites & Around te Members MARCH: We have four new members. Welcome back Brett Stone after a 15 year break! Welcome to Cathy Graham [introduced by Karen Stevens] plus Jodie Smith and Matt Wilson who have recently moved to our beautiful area. We know you each will enjoy our company and learn heaps. Notes from Frances: Our meeting was very well attended on a rainy Saturday afternoon. We were lucky to have Alan Phythian as guest speaker and it was good to meet the ever happy Dorothy. Alans’ very interesting talk and slide show was on hybridising vriesias. More on page 3. The Popular Vote choices were so very difficult to decide. The quality of the bromeliads, and in particular the cryptanthus, was most impressive and the show of flowering plants was stunning. From the large and beautiful tillandsias such as the Tillandsia jalisco monticola and Tillandsia fasciculata hybrid, both of which were very large well-formed grey plants with tall pink flower spikes. At the other end of the scale were the very small-flowered plants such as Fosterella villosula, with its unusual fine red multi-branched stalk with minute white flowers along the branches; Tillandsia complanata with 4-5 small red flower spears emerging on fine stems from separate leaf axils, and the tiny perfect aromatic yellow flower of Tillandsia crocata, Gail had cutely tagged “Smell Me”. Members were obedient - it must have been sniffed out by 4pm! Paul Venturi’s very healthy Orthophytum “Warren Loose” in a ceramic vase was also a standout with two flowering inflorescences. * Frances showed a pot of Tillandsia cyanea with four pink paddles and purple flowers. * It was excellent to have Novice entries, keep it up Janie and Cathy. MINI SHOW – Flowering Bromelioideae!! ! ! 1st Tillandsia fasciculata var. densispica – Dave Weston > 2nd Tillandsia jalisco-monticola – Marguerite Sexton 3rd. Neoregelia ‘Captain Moxley’ - Steven French POPULAR VOTE: NOVICE Bromeliad 1st Neoregelia ‘De Rolf’- Janie O’Brien 2nd. Guzmania hybrid – Cathy Graham OPEN - Bromeliad 1st Neoregelia ‘Leopard’– Darryl Lister 2nd. Neoregelia ‘Captain Moxley’ - Steven French 3rd. Orthophytum ‘Warren Loose’ – Paul Venturi Cryptanthus 1st Cryptanthus ‘Strawberries Flambe’ – John Mark 2nd Cryptanthus ‘San Juan’– Lynn Hudson 3rd Cryptanthus zonatus – Marguerite Sexton Tillandsia 1st Tillandsia jalisco-monticola – Marguerite Sexton 2nd..Tillandsia fasciculata hybrid - Dave Weston 3rd. Tillandsia cyanea – Frances Boyd Tillandsia cyanea 3 More from Frances Boyd: I answered wrongly when asked how much sun my Tillandsia cyanea is receiving. At this time of the year with the midday sun overhead, it is getting very little direct sun because it is under extremely high tree ferns, it receives dappled sun at summer midday. [Ed. Placing our plants to suit summertime is a good idea - as we are closer to the equator the sun rises more north easterly in summer. Another advantage of growing them in pots is that we can easily move them around.] 1st of March means summer is over! Hooray. I think we all agree that it hasn’t been too bad this year, some days boiling hot and very humid, but overall cooler. Time now to get down to the weeding, pruning, and plant separating despite the showers and the mosquitoes. [Frances, in November every year, I remind you all of what John Catlan said, “When it is raining and humid it is good rooting weather”. Ed.] There are valuable lessons to be learned from Lynn, who judges the mini shows: * Do not overpot. Plants that are over potted first expend their energy trying to attach roots to the sides of the pot before they start to grow. * Position the plant high in the pot to allow them to aerate well as this helps prevent rot. For the same reason remove dead leaves. Comments on Guest Speaker’s presentation: Alan said his initial desire was to create “white” vriesias. He favoured Vriesias fosteriana, ‘Red Chestnut’, ‘Angela’, ‘Snows of Mauna Kea’ and ‘Squiggles’ as parents, with singular success. The audience Oh’d and Ah’d as they saw slides of plants Alan has bred. It showed Alan’s breakthrough into a series of phenomenally beautiful pink plants, some infused with lime or cream. Many are named, you will be able to tell which are his progeny as in most he has prefixed the hybrid name with ‘Maroochy’, for example Vriesia ‘Maroochy Mother of Pearl’. Alan warned that full colour does not develop until the plant is more mature. He laughs at himself for including a seedling of Vriesia ‘Maroochy Inferno’ with each Ebay sale - they grew to a gloriously darker and stronger pink plant than he expected! He is also philosophical and kind-hearted about being persuaded to sell a plant with hair pups to a customer who promised to return a pup if he could grow them. The customer returned a pup - charging Alan $15. [I have heard of this happening locally at a much higher charge! Ed] The customer subsequently sold a plant for over $900 and another for $300. Alan covered pollination, discussing all-night vigils as plants become receptive anywhere between 8pm and 3am. A mate said, “Why don’t ya put them in a dark shed?” - lo and behold it worked, making life much easier for Alan. Alan also uses a straw that he slips over the stigma to avoid contamination by unwanted pollen. Alan brought up some of plants for sale, and very kindly donated several for our raffle. This was a very much appreciated. Interesting information and tips emerged during question time: * The term “RHS” in some crosses means Royal Hawaiian Series: the mix of seed as a result of a paper bag of seed stored for over six months, by a Hawaiian friend, exploding. * Alan sprinkles ground cinnamon into cleaned cups of plants affected by Phytophora cinnamomi fungal rot. * Fertilising brings plants into flower. * Alan uses a plant mix of fly ash, pine bark and crumbled Styrofoam. * Removal of the flower spike will encourage extra pup production from the plant, particularly if done at the start of flowering (heart rending). The plant then secretes a hormone that triggers offset growth. !!!!!!! 4 Vr. ʻMaroochy Infernoʻ" " " " " " Vr. !Maroochy Superb Pink# Vr. Maroochy !Winter Snow! MY THOUGHTS ON HYBRIDISING VRIESEAS by Alan Phythian In 1996 I self-pollinated a Vr. ‘Red Chestnut’ as I had a brainwave to try to reverse the colouring in it and this started my interest in hybridising vrieseas. Previously I had some success with Cattleya Orchids. At the 2006 Tillnut Conference Peter Tristram gave a talk on the losses he experienced in quarantine when importing plants into Australia. I suggested we should try to create hybrids here in Australia. Olive Trevor and Cheryl Basic were there and they both said I could use their plants if I wished to try it, then Bob Larnach and Jack Koning were also a great help. I have never believed that you should cross two plants together just because they are both out in flower - you should set yourself a target of what you want to achieve and work towards that. Study photos of the hybrids and what is more important, their breeding, that will give you some idea of what plants are dominant and which are recessive. My early pitfall was with Vr. hieroglyphica the plant I tried to use first. Although a beautiful plant it was not fertile this I believe was a result of the Europeans crossing diploid plants with tetraploid plants as is done with most guzmanias. Diploid or 2n plants have 2 sets of chromosomes which determine the characteristics of plants and any future progeny and is the normal setup with plants found in the wild. Tetraploid or 4n have 4 sets of chromosomes and because of their doubled number they assert double the influence that a normal diploid plant would.