I was just spending time with the vanilla vine whose flowers I've been attempting to pollinate, feeling bad that the pollinations seemed to not have stuck. I was looking at the withered flowers wondering if they would fatten up or what? (because some of the flowers fell off, but some withered and stayed on the plant.) when I realized that some of the withered flowers were actually attached to green tubes! 😱
So in pic 1 below, here's what's happening:
It's an inflorescence (I think that's the word) where flowers come in one or two at a time. So the bud at the left and top have not yet opened. On the right behind my hand is a flower that I recently pollinated and that's withering. Most of the yellow-green "sticks" are places where flowers used to be, but have fallen off. Then at the bottom, you see three pods that look like fresh green beans, and I believe these are pods that have gotten pollinated and are growing! The pod in the middle still has a dried flower at the bottom.
Once I realized what I was looking at, I realized there were a bunch of other pods on the plant (see pic 2).
So I looked up when they should be harvested and it turns out they get harvested before they dry on the vine: https://vanillery.com/ripe-green-vanilla-pods/
The pods are so sneaky! They totally look like the rest of the vine, so a dumb predator (like me) wouldn't notice they were there, allowing the pod to mature and release its thousands of tiny seeds. Such a smart plant.
So yay! If I hadn't just been spacing out, standing in the garden, looking at the plant, I might not have ever noticed 😱
#plants #gardening #nature #hawaii #vanilla #orchids plants group (npub1agj…lkw7)
