Ceropegia crassifolia flower

[One Windowsill]

My seed-grown Ceropegia crassifolia just opened its first flower after one year and two months, though I might actually prefer the buds. The plant is about 2 foot tall but only because I wrap the vines back in every time they make a break for it. The squares on the shirt I used as background have approximately 1 cm sides.

Ceropegia crassifolia.jpg (62.49 KiB) Viewed 2453 times

Ceropegia crassifolia2.jpg (65.57 KiB) Viewed 2453 times

Ceropegia crassifolia3.jpg (63.41 KiB) Viewed 2453 times

[CactusFanDan]

Those are brilliant. I'd love to get more Ceropegias, they're very nice plants and can be put in hanging pots to avoid using bench space. Do you know of any good sources for Ceropegia seed?

[One Windowsill]

I got my seed from the International Asclepiad Society. If you are a member you can buy seed from their lists once or twice a year. If you are quick, the good stuff goes quickly. I am going to try cuttings in a few months. If you are on a Stagecoach bus route I could deliver

[CactusFanDan]

I got my seed from the International Asclepiad Society. If you are a member you can buy seed from their lists once or twice a year. If you are quick, the good stuff goes quickly. I am going to try cuttings in a few months. If you are on a Stagecoach bus route I could deliver

Awesome, I'll be sure to join them. I would love a few cuttings! A few stagecoach buses go by my area, so you could deliver them and have a nosey around my greenhouse if you like.

[One Windowsill]

That would be great. I will bring it up again when I have cuttings rooted.

[R_gtx]

What growing medium are you using for this Ceropegia?

I too acquired this seed from the IAS last year, but due to unforeseen commitments did not sow till earlier this month. Happily all six seeds have germinated and resultant seedlings appear sturdy and healthy. Am glad to hear that yours bloomed in so short a time, only thirteen months to wait.

[Saxicola]

Great flowers! I'm really fond of Asclepiads, especially the highly succulent types like these and Stapeliads. I lean towards Stapeliads though, simply because they stay more managable. Pretty hard to have a big Ceropegia collection without a lot of space to manage all the vines. You can wrap the looser ones as you said, but many are too succulent to bend very far.

[One Windowsill]

R_gtx, I am using just perlite with a layer of gravel to weigh the pot at the bottom and another on top to stop the perlite going green. I should take more pictures, it is looking ridiculous. It has been at a minimum of 14°C and mostly between 20 and 30°C with constant 12 hour days. Watering (with feed) every two days at the moment.

Unfortunately, the cuttings I took just withered, I will be trying again more carefully, several branches withered when bruised.

[One Windowsill]

Well gosh, I wasn't expecting that.

Open Ceropegia

Open Ceropegia.jpg (55.29 KiB) Viewed 2317 times

Open Ceropegia from a different angle.

Open Ceropegia 2.jpg (67.88 KiB) Viewed 2317 times

It is not a one-off - here you can see another three flowers open.

Open bunch.

Open Ceropegia 3.jpg (71.47 KiB) Viewed 2317 times

[One Windowsill]

I think the second one is worth a close-up.

Close up.jpg (54.79 KiB) Viewed 2301 times

[R_gtx]

Thanks for the information, and for the further excellent photographs. It looks like the C. nilotica var. plicata seed from the same source is also germinating.
Perhaps, I should sow the C. verruculosa seed from the latest IAS list next year

[One Windowsill]

Were the C. crassifolia seeds in the fridge? I have always wondered how long seeds of the asclepiads stayed viable. I have always sown them as soon as possible.

[R_gtx]

The seeds were simply stored in a desk drawer in my study, I would guess min/max temp extremes being 12/25 °C, throughout the year. Though stapeliads and closely related genera do seem to lose viability rapidly, other genera in the Asclepiadaceae/Apocynaceae family would appear to store well.

From the 2013 list: Cynanchum luteifluens (3 out of 4 seeds germinated), Strophanthus amboensis (3 out of 3), Marsdenia macrantha (1 out of 2).

It would appear, that I made a slight error in my first post, my Ceropegia crassifolia and C. nilotica v plicata were numbered 2699 and 2700 respectively, from the January 2012 list, hence collected 2011. Germination rates of 6/6 and 1/3. The recent mini heatwave in the UK probably facilitated germination.

Though unrelated, seeds 2676 from the 2011 list also germinated (2 out of 2), and I had to ask T. Marshall to ID this number (Beaucarnea recurvata) as I had inadvertently deleted the original email