Germination of tropical seeds from Costa Rica

Just a short update on what’s up here in our Swedish tropics in the middle of the winter. It has been a month since we returned from a truly amazing trip to wonderful Costa Rica. Sure thing I couldn’t restrain myself (and had no intention to) from collecting some seeds.

Some were on my wish list, like Vanuatu fan palm (Licuala grandis) – look through the gallery below. Even an orange form of stilt palm Areca vestiaria has been on the same palm list. I also collected a few seeds of Christmas palm (Adonidia merrillii) even so that I already got two rather mature exemplars about 9 yo from seeds from Mauritius. They are getting so big now so that if we don’t move to a place with higher ceiling, I will have to find a new home for them on their-own soon. So some new seedlings can be a new start for years to come.

Getting seeds from Chinese fan palm (Livistona chinensis) was more spontaneous action, when I saw the dense crown of large drooping fan leaves.

Besides the palms I was keen on getting seeds (and I did get them) from some interesting cultivars of Ti plant (Cordyline fruticosa) and Ixora. I found some ripe berries of dwarf Ixora compacta ‘Sunkist’.

Palms have germinated in just two weeks on warm and wet bed of perlite in a plastic box. See my older post on palms with details on seeds germination.

Ti plant and Ixora seeds are still in the process.