Quote:
Originally Posted by mollycart1
Jasen, those are 'female' flowers, aren't they? Does it always put out female flowers? Very nice. Thank you for sharing.
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Female and male flowers have both types of organ parts but one of those parts are atrophied ((hermaphroditic flowers also have both but the two parts are atrophied)))... Them if different flower morphology (females look very alike among Catasetums and usually are quite different from males), don't tell you nothing, and a closer look to sexual parts of the flower isn't enough to be sure which sex is the functional one and for them the flower belongs, them to distinguish flowers you have to seek for the trigger mechanism (antennae).
If both antennae are full developed, is male, if antennae is absent them is female, and if is only partially developed no matter the more or less "stage of development" is hermaphrodite. Only very few species have almost no antennae on males (longifolium,roseo-album, discolor and don't recall right now which other one)... but that is quite rare among the dozens of species known inside the genus.
Other way to distinguish sex is resupination in male flowers... but since male flowers behaves diferenttly on this mather between different species, only if you know this behaviour on the species you have on front, them you can tell the sex it belongs. Also the number of flowers and longevity can give you some clue, male inflorescence can have much more flowers x spike, and female flowers can last twice or even much more than male flowers.
Catasetum integerrimum
Linear Mode
