If you are able to pollinate the flower and it takes (maybe Lisa knows whether it is self-fertile, or anyone else with experience on that), then it is a sure way of increasing your stock much faster. As lilliputiana is a species, it will come true to the parents from seed. If you happy increasing your stock just by offsets, do not bother with the seed. But I am getting hooked on growing them from seed, so go for it! Japie

Neo. lilliputiana is not self-fertile, so that resolves your dilemma!

As to whether it's worthwhile in general to collect (self) seeds from a species that is easier to propagate vegetatively, it depends on your reasons for doing so. I can think of a few reasons: practice growing seeds, sharing with someone you can't send plants to, attaining sheer volume of one species for production and sale, trying to create an improved clone. I'm just talking about species plants here. Collecting self seeds from a hybrid is a whole different ballgame since they don't come true from seed. That can be either good or bad depending on what your goals are.

Japie, thanks for your encouragement about growing from seed, I think it would be a lot of fun. You were also right that Lisa would know whether lilliputiana was self-fertile :)

Lisa, thanks for providing the resolution to my dilemma! Just out of curiosity, is there a list of self-fertile Neos out there?

Thank you for helping me out!

I know Neo. kautskyi is a species that selfs and comes true from seed. I don't know if you want to experiment with hybrids. They can be interesting, but you have to take the bad with the good. I know Lisa's mentioned her N. 'Blushing Tiger', and I have a N. 'Morado' that always self.

No list that I know of, treehaus. You just have to figure it out as you go along.

Broms seem to fall into 3 main categories: a) self-pollinators, in which all of the flowers will automatically pollinate themselves without outside help, and may even reject any attempts to pollinate with anything else; b) self-infertile types that will only accept outside pollen; and c) somewhere in between, i.e. capable of selfing if pollinated but don't do it every time, and will accept (and may prefer) outside pollen.

I don't know what the breakdown of these types is, but my general experience has been that maybe 10-20% of Neos fall into the first category, but most of them fall into the second category. I really don't think there are all that many that will self easily but only if pollinated. I come across those more often in other genera, like Aechmeas and Vrieseas.

This is not based on any hard scientific evidence, mind you, just observation of the results of my pollination efforts, as well as selfed or wild-pollinated seeds I've grown out. If most Neos were self-compatible I'd be seeing a lot more seedlings that looked like F2s. I do emasculate the flowers, but not beforehand, so I'd expect a little bit of its own pollen to get onto the stigma most of the time, and I'm just not seeing it showing up in the results that often.

It's not really correct to say that a particular species is self-infertile, though, just that an individual plant is. In nature you often have many variants of the same species growing in close proximity, and they are compatible pollinators because they are not all the same clone. The problem comes when somebody collects only one specimen and propagates that, so then all individuals in cultivation are genetically identical.

Y'know... right off the top of my head I can't think of any Neo species that is a self-pollinator, except for Neo. stolonifera, which is in that pendula-eleutheropetala subgroup (which in my opinion should really be a separate genus). If anyone can think of another one, or has been successful self-pollinating a species, holler out! I can think of plenty of Aechmeas and other genera, and plenty of hybrids that are, but not true Neo SPECIES. Hmmm.......

I didn't see your posting about kautskyii, Paul. Mine has never flowered, so I have no experience with it. Can you think of any others?

Well since many of us are growing seeds of hannibal lector we know Bob has a plant that selfed... we all got our seeds from him :)

I only thought of adding 'Hannibal Lector' to my list only after signing off on my previous post. There's one other species that I've seen besides kautskyi, it's a plant at our local botanical garden which is dubiously labelled as "carcharodon". I'll have to get a photo of it to post for ID next time I visit there. Though, it's probably not a plant you want to use you precious indoor space in MN.
I'm not sure, but N. zonata might be another selfer.

Yeah, indoor space is precious, that's part of the appeal of Neo lilliputiana... but, I tend to like miniature plants anyway, and it looks good with the orchids I grow, which are also small scale.

Lisa, I don't know why I assumed there would be a list of self-fertile Neo species, I had tried to find something like that online before I posted about this. Your comments above are really interesting!

Hannibal is not a species, of course, but it is a self-pollinator. Some others that come to mind are Painted Lady, Little Rose and Milagro (which will produce albinos anyway, so that's a double whammy).

I think you're right about zonata, Paul. Now that you mention it I have collected some self seed from of that one, and also from its offspring, Marnier-Lapostolle, and from ITS offspring, Blushing Tiger, and also from ITS offspring, Blueberry Tiger..... gee, I wonder if any of the Blueberry Tiger F2s will be self-pollinators? Whaddya wanna bet?

hmm....? seems to be a dominant trait. As to your last question- you'll have to give me some ridiculously good odds to bet against it!

Hi all,
Yes,N.zonata is a selfer,and I did send out seeds to a few GW'ers about a month ago,but...it seems difficult to coax germination out of them,according to some replies I've received. Of the two dozen seeds I tried,only around 6 germinated,and now thats down to 2 survivors left. Other kinds os seeds planted at the same time,having the exact same conditions are nearly 90% germinated,and I'm running out of room for them.So I have no explanations why zonata is being difficult.Anyone doing better?
Bob

Well, now that's interesting, Bob. The ones I collected from my plant didn't germinate either. I thought it was just me. Why would a plant go to all that trouble to make inviable seeds? There must be a glitch in the system somewhere.

The zonata selfing gene does seem to be really dominant. I hadn't thought about it until this thread came up, but that would explain why Blushing Tiger selfs and Screaming Tiger (Sharon Petersen's hybrid) doesn't. Now I'm wondering if ALL of the crosses I made with Blushing Tiger and Blueberry Tiger will be selfers too, not just the F2s. They were used as pollen parents, of course, but that hasn't stopped the trait from passing on this far. We shall see...

BTW, I just happened to come across an article about Blushing Tiger selfings in the Journal of the Bromeliad Society of Queensland. It sounds like none of the F2s they got had the blushing trait, which has also been my experience so far. Since Max and probably several others of you have the plant and will be getting self seeds, you might want to check out the pictures of some of the offspring before you try growing them. I'm pretty sure they've selected the best ones. The majority won't show any banding either, just some dark speckling.

Here is a link that might be useful: PDF file - BSQ Journal