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Chamaedorea metallica fruit/ seed handling


John W.

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Hello,

This is my first post to PalmTalk. On impulse, last summer I bought four small Chamaedorea metallica plants at a nursery in Minneapolis. I have them in my house in western Wisconsin and they seem to be doing fine and making new leaves. When I bought them, they were just producing the weird flower stalks. It turned out that I bought two male plants and two female plants. I attempted to hand pollinate with a camel hair brush and apparently succeeded (to my great surprise). I have never tried anything like this before. The fruits slowly developed and slowly changed from green to a dark blue-black color. I did the hand pollination in late July 2009 but the fruits are all still attached to the stalk and they seem very firmly attached (as of today, May 2, 2010). It has been about 9 months since I pollinated the female flowers. I would like to process the fruits and try to germinate the seeds, but I am nervous to remove them since they are still so firm and so firmly attached. The fruits have been dark blue-black for several months now- are they mature? Please examine the attached photo that I took a few minutes ago. Is it ok to physically break the fruits from the stalk or should I wait until they fall off on their own? Thank you for any advice. John post-3782-12728132630584_thumb.jpg

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Hi John, welcome to Palm Talk! I'm no expert but your fruits certainly look ripe enough to be safely removed although I'm sure I'll be quickly corrected if wrong! My largest metallica has just finished flowering, I was surprised by the lemon fragrance. It's a brilliant species and sadly little known in the UK - I'd recommend it to anyone!

Enjoy the forum,

Mark.

Mark Peters

Indoor palm grower

Monifieth, near Dundee

Scotland's sunny NE coast

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Any more thoughts anyone?

Mark Peters

Indoor palm grower

Monifieth, near Dundee

Scotland's sunny NE coast

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Congratulation on getting seed Mark! I got my first Chamaedorea metallica over ten years ago and it was a male. Every plant that I have bought since then has also turned out to be a male plant. Hopefully I will find a female one day.

I don't know specifically about metallica seed, but with any palm, I wait until the seed falls or comes off with little effort.

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  • 1 month later...

I think the fruit can be picked from the palm,because the colour changed from green to black.After you pick the fruit,wear gloves and remove the black fruit wall and take out the grey seed inside under water.After you take out the seeds,use wet tissue paper warp the seeds and put it in ziplock plastic bag and close it well,then place the seeds in a warm place,it will germinate after few weeks.After the seeds germinate,you can place in a pot of soil for growing!

Edited by chayote
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