Over the past couple of weeks, the pair of Aerangis macrocentra plants inside my Tall Orchidarium have been busy developing seed pods, which is very exciting!  These two orchids flowered one after the other; there was only a single day when both plants had a flower in bloom at the same time.  Thankfully, I managed to cross-pollinate at least two of these plants’ flowers, but the other seed pods you see here in my pictures were self-pollinated, either by the insects inside my terrarium or by the plants themselves.

Currently, these plants are both holding more seed pods than I would usually allow.  I have found that young orchids or orchids that aren’t in prime condition are at risk and tend to decline or die sometime after pollination; one or two of my plants have died whilst in the process of producing seeds and a few plants have died immediately after their seed pods ripened.

I am hoping that I won’t harm these orchids, as I’ve decided for the moment to leave all of the seed pods to develop on the plant and see what happens.  I will be monitoring the plants closely.

Aerangis macrocentra orchids produce seed more rapidly than many of the other orchids I grow.  If this was one of my Phalaenopsis orchid species, which take much longer to develop their seeds, I would have only allowed one or two seed pods to remain on each plant.

Will I change my mind?  Have I made a mistake?  Will the plants abort any of their seed pods?  I’ll let you know in my next update!

To see the next update on my Aerangis macrocentra seed pods, please click here.

I purchased both of these Aerangis macrocentra plants as teeny tiny seedlings from Burnham Nurseries in April 2016.

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