Sinningia conspicua (from seeds to flowering)

When I fell in love with Sinningia. One of my friend told me that he had a Sinningia species with a rare yellow color and fragrance.  Thank to his kindness, I got these seeds of Sinningia conspicua. This was my first time to sow Sinninga seeds.  The seeds were so tiny, just like sand. Maybe, you can see that there is a brown point at the top of the little green leaf. That is the seed! The seeds were sowed on the surface of the soil. If the seeds are fresh, after 2-3 weeks, they will germinate.  After a two-year observation, the project turned out to be a good result, and the yellow flower has a citrus-like fragrance.

Seedlings  2006 Nov.

Flowering 2008 May

After almost five months, they finally grew up a little bit. I guess that tey are in kindergarten now.

2007 April

After April, the nature of the Taiwanese climate turns into to the summer season with higher temperature and sun light intensity.  I guess this helped Sinningia conspicua a little to grow into elementary school! The leaf was thicker. Maybe, it's time to move them into a bigger house :)

2007 Sept.

Finally after almost one year, they grew bigger and seemed to be mature, but the biggest question for me was when they would finally flower?  I guess I was too afraid that the summer sunlight would kill them, so I grew them in the house with shading. Maybe, that's why they grew so slowly.

2007 Dec.

2007 Dec

During the winter, I grew them outside for most of the time, in order to let them have more sunlight. Only when the weather forecast sent a cold weather warning, I would move them back into the house. Then the warmer March seemed to wake them up again.

2008 March

Finally, they developed visible flower buds in April 2008. However, can you believe that the flower development  also took about one more month! The flower stalk grew longer. At the end of May, flower buds get yellow and bigger, and finally  it was show time for the Sinningia conspicua.

2008 April

2008 May

2008 May 

I was so curious about the inside world of the Sinningia conspicua flower, so I cut it open. The filaments were so cute that they were hand in hand together.  One of my friend told me that this is the character for Gesneriaceae family  :)

Obviously, this species can be self-pollinated! I heard amateur breeders use this species to breed with others to develop some hybrids with the yellow flower but a gradual red color inside. What a nice combination!