Author Topic: Does one tropical lily only produce one tuber? (Read 2147 times)

greenthumbnails · « **on:** June 17, 2009, 11:46:52 AM »

Does one tropical lily only produce one tuber?

Or is it possible that one plant can produce multiple tubers for sharing?

Vickie · « **Reply #1 on:** June 17, 2009, 03:57:21 PM »

Some produce more that others. I had an Allene produce 7. And Miami Rose produces a lot. Woods White Knight produces well too.

Rad Michelle · « **Reply #2 on:** June 17, 2009, 04:20:44 PM »

actually tropicals can not only form more than one tuber they can produce corms too underneath the plants growing crown, which will make little plants that eventually grow into big adult ones too... those you can divide and share... or you can even pull the plant off of the corm and let the corm grow another plant... kinda the same as a tuber. ...kinda confusing.. but i've got pictures? so does craig! if you search the forums on koiphen.com under water gardening... better yet let me pull up the link for you... http://www.koiphen.com/forums/showthread.php?t=95022&highlight=dividing+tropicals

greenthumbnails · « **Reply #3 on:** June 17, 2009, 08:17:35 PM »

Wow, thanks for the info. I was confused as to one tuber per tropical and couldn't figure out why people were sending their one and only plant away if they sent a tuber. I thought that the tuber was the mother plant gone dormant. So if you gave someone your tropical tuber, you would have given them your mother plant and you'd be sans tropical unless you managed to pinch off a small plantlet before sending the tuber off to a friend.

Michelle- that was a very interesting thread. I thought that the extra mini plants were from vivips that rooted, but did not know what happened to tropicals that did not propagate viviparously and couldn't figure out how one shared those plants if they only had one tuber. So, I figured the only way was if you pinched off plantlets like in Sean's tropical tuber tutorial. So, if some tropicals make multiple tubers (corms?) or send out runners to new plantlets then HOORAY! ...sharing has just become easier...

Rad Michelle · « **Reply #4 on:** June 18, 2009, 09:56:39 AM »

no problem the whole dividing trops thing was crazy confusing when i started and now i'm excited to share- gimmie a day and i'll shrink and post these awesome divide pics i took the other day.... i lent out my darn memory card, but i'm a fan of photographing and documenting every small thing i do with my plants... i need an external harddrive for space by now

.

Rad Michelle · « **Reply #5 on:** June 19, 2009, 11:25:33 PM »

heeey you. i didnt know if you wanted some pictures... but i decided to post some on here also about the whole corms-tuber-dividing-it-producing-extras-to-share shin digg... and i know i woulda found this a bit helpful earlier on... beut it was way exciting finding out for myself. this could even be turned into a tutorial

. hehe this is also what comes in in handy when you have a truly named plant and wana keep it that way - the propagating vegitatively thing... because seeds of parents.. even if they are both the same plant dont produce another truely named plant... i dont know if i explained that right

.

this plant is the same plant that i didnt want to uproot on the link above... and if you read it somewhere i think it mentions that i didnt find any tubers.. but i did find plants... well this is why i didnt find any hard tubers hanging out in the roots-

i hope the pictures come out in order...

this is a picture of the size of the plant i divided- there were smaller pads growing on the surface right next to the gi-normous sized pads so i knew i had dividable plants and just decided to uproot it... vs that link i posted where i wanted to keep the plant potted

ok this is a picture of a rhizome that was under the crown of the plant... after all the roots were trimmed away.... (yep tropicals get rhizomes too in happy conditions? idk why

-) you can see the smaller pads i was talking about... especially noting the difference in stem size.

This is me breaking the rhizome off right underneath the crown... and you can see that there is life on this rhizome.. the little red smudge is actually a leaf coming up. crazy

These are pictures of underneath the crown where i broke the rhizome off... you can see little individual tan things.. id vote this is what were calling a corm... another growing point.. not exactly the same as a tuber.. which is what the plant makes and is full of nutrients to make it through a winter etc.

this is me kinda seperating the little individual plants... from the big big one... and if you followed the stems down into the root mass it leads to one of the tan corms with little roots all on its own.. and you just kinda wiggle it out of the mass of roots and you've got your own little plant...

aaaand this is all the little tan balled corm plants i wiggled off.

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hopefully this was helpful.. and if any of our resident growers have input.. or if i did ok! please post

Sean · « **Reply #6 on:** June 19, 2009, 11:53:24 PM »

You did great Michelle

I only wish more people would try dividing, the plants are much hardier than people think.

Cheers,
Sean

Rad Michelle · « **Reply #7 on:** June 20, 2009, 12:26:04 AM »

awww hehe thanks!

actually i can remember the first time i tried dividing i was so nervous i would kill the plant or something but these suckers are tough! haha. nowadays i just wrench and wriggle with the "i know im gunna get you to come outa there" attitude and they do just fine. Haha my friends watched one day and were like 'geez your gunna break something' i'm careful... i just know where to poke and pull now

greenthumbnails · « **Reply #8 on:** June 20, 2009, 06:02:38 AM »

Michelle- COOL and AWESOME !!!

This is exactly what I was looking for. I kept searching for a post that would show how to do this and with detailed pics but only found the ones on what to do if it was a viviparous tropical or if one already had a tuber. Couldn't find anything that addressed an already growing and established plant. HOORAY!

We definitely should have this saved under the tutorial section.
Thank you so much for posting this!

PS: You are very brave, I unpottted a tropical, stared at the root mass -scratched my head and repotted it into a bigger pot since I had no idea what to do...

Rad Michelle · « **Reply #9 on:** June 20, 2009, 08:44:42 AM »

haha!
well thank you i'm glad it help i know i searched other forums foreeever and on the internet and everything but not a whole lot about differences in !water lily corms and tubers, and i didnt know a trop could make a rhizome so i thought the rhizome was the tuber and it looked like a pinapple not a nut... haha. and i think i'll post something on seed pods too because for the life of me i could never tell if i had one or not or even if i was doing it right... and i now know i never did have a seed pod until this year... i'm just tryin to think of all the stuff i was scratching my head about.

haha and the brave-ness aint so bad after you have a handful of lilies to ponder... i can remember ordering some.. and then thinkin... 'well i thought this was a tropical... why does it have a rhizome... what am i supposed to do wit this thing plant it horizontal??"

jclements · « **Reply #10 on:** June 20, 2009, 12:55:29 PM »

Looks good. I would call the tan things tubers, which are probably synonymous with corms.

There are tons of articles on waterlily cultivation over at Victoria-Adventure (http://www.victoria-adventure.org/waterlilies/cultivation.html). Specifically, here is one with photos similar to the ones posted by Michelle. http://www.victoria-adventure.org/waterlilies_images/divide/page1.html

Maybe you can find some additional topics covered there? Most of the articles are written by folks who have been watergardening since before I was born!

Rad Michelle · « **Reply #11 on:** June 20, 2009, 02:51:11 PM »

OOO, this is the same rhizome i broke off and pointed out it was alive with a small red smudge of a leaf coming up... i just let if float around in one of my preform ponds in warm warm water... and this is what has happend to it- it looks like its grown longer too because the additional small piece on the bottom wasnt there before and its now sending out plants also... i believe this is a tuber in the making... the time since breaking it off to- now... is a week. i took off that rhizome on monday.

greenthumbnails · « **Reply #12 on:** June 21, 2009, 04:49:17 AM »

Whoa, that's just too much fun!

Pretty neat huh?

That's so weird, it does look more like a pineapple rhizome (tuber?) as if it were a hardy lily instead of a tropical. And, its growing plants off places other than the crown...crazy.

Kat · « **Reply #13 on:** June 21, 2009, 05:08:48 AM »

Looks like you are getting the hang of it Michelle & great of you to post pics.

greenthumbnails · « **Reply #14 on:** June 21, 2009, 08:12:09 AM »

Quote from: jclements on June 20, 2009, 12:55:29 PM

Looks good. I would call the tan things tubers, which are probably synonymous with corms.

There are tons of articles on waterlily cultivation over at Victoria-Adventure (http://www.victoria-adventure.org/waterlilies/cultivation.html). Specifically, here is one with photos similar to the ones posted by Michelle. http://www.victoria-adventure.org/waterlilies_images/divide/page1.html

Maybe you can find some additional topics covered there? Most of the articles are written by folks who have been watergardening since before I was born!

Jessica- In that one link you posted it mentions something about the "rhizome being turned in"...any idea what they mean by that? I am clueless...

Rad Michelle · « **Reply #15 on:** June 21, 2009, 09:12:40 AM »

well if you look at the way the rhizome was growing under the crown of the tropical in the second picture that was posted... its growing vertically... so if it were to keep growing it would evtually hit the bottom of the pot... keep growing and push the whole plant out of the pot too... so i think when they turn it, its to just move the rhizome into a more horizontal position so the plant wont get pushed out of the pot.

Rad Michelle · « **Reply #16 on:** June 21, 2009, 11:48:11 PM »

hey does anyone have an pictures on the difference in corms and tubers... or are they pretty much the same.

Vickie · « **Reply #17 on:** June 22, 2009, 08:07:58 AM »

I sprout most of my tropical lilies from a tuber. I store the tubers all winter. Then come spring I bring them back out of storage and resprout them. You can get one sprout or more off each tuber.

jclements · « **Reply #18 on:** June 22, 2009, 09:20:04 PM »

MJ, I'm not sure what that means on the tutorial, about the turned rhizome. I have always been under the impression that plants grow up and away from a rhizome, so when you plant a hardy waterlily for example, the base of the rhizome (opposite the growing point) should go against the side wall of the pot so that the plant has the entire pot to grow across. The Ostara I sent you was one out of four tubers in my pot from the winter. You can also pluck newer plants off of tubers and float them in your pond/container to stress them into forming a young tuber (light brown, like in Michelle's pics). I often did this in the fall in Florida to help ensure my tropicals would overwinter.

Michelle, I hope an expert can chime in here, I am curious now, too. I think that the terms tuber and corm are often interchanged. From what little information I gathered in some online searches, and a quick browse through an old book (encyclopedia of the water-lily by Masters) I guess waterlilies technically have tubers and rhizomes. Corms are in other plants such as taro and gladiolas, which have layers. The definitions of each are pretty vague.

greenthumbnails · « **Reply #19 on:** June 24, 2009, 03:45:11 PM »

Quote from: jclements on June 22, 2009, 09:20:04 PM

MJ, I'm not sure what that means on the tutorial, about the turned rhizome. I have always been under the impression that plants grow up and away from a rhizome, so when you plant a hardy waterlily for example, the base of the rhizome (opposite the growing point) should go against the side wall of the pot so that the plant has the entire pot to grow across. The Ostara I sent you was one out of four tubers in my pot from the winter. You can also pluck newer plants off of tubers and float them in your pond/container to stress them into forming a young tuber (light brown, like in Michelle's pics). I often did this in the fall in Florida to help ensure my tropicals would overwinter.

Michelle, I hope an expert can chime in here, I am curious now, too. I think that the terms tuber and corm are often interchanged. From what little information I gathered in some online searches, and a quick browse through an old book (encyclopedia of the water-lily by Masters) I guess waterlilies technically have tubers and rhizomes. Corms are in other plants such as taro and gladiolas, which have layers. The definitions of each are pretty vague.

Jessica and Vickie- what did you do with the tuber itself after plucking off a plantlet or two? Did you ever just plant the whole tuber in a pot afterward and let it grow one large plant?

PS: Jessica, the Ostara tuber has grown like mad this last week! It has large pads already

The Lily pons appears to have gone dormant, possilbly transplant shock but I've got the Ostara to look at for the time being. Thanks for sending me the tuber, I really like the color of the pads