catasetum penang, 2 male and 2 female

[catasetum-ian]

first time seeing the female of this hybrid, and i love the yellow color. fair and square, 2 female and 2 male.

[tuvoc]

Wow. Super cool.

Kim

[kavanaru]

That's a very nice Penang! Just a comment, you do not have female flowers there, but two hermaphrodite flowers... Showing both feminine and masculine features...

[catasetum-ian]

Originally Posted by kavanaru

That's a very nice Penang! Just a comment, you do not have female flowers there, but two hermaphrodite flowers... Showing both feminine and masculine features...

would like some info about hermaphrodites, i call it a female because i do not see the pair of antenna with a dome hood, however there is a structure resembles the anther beak.
so do we still call a flower hermaprhodite if there is no antennae with the dome?
i just attach here a previous hermaphrodite bloom of mine (frontal view showing the pair of antennae and lateral showing the dome skull). thanks

[WhiteRabbit]

very cool!

[kavanaru]

Originally Posted by catasetum-ian

would like some info about hermaphrodites, i call it a female because i do not see the pair of antenna with a dome hood, however there is a structure resembles the anther beak.
so do we still call a flower hermaprhodite if there is no antennae with the dome?
i just attach here a previous hermaphrodite bloom of mine (frontal view showing the pair of antennae and lateral showing the dome skull). thanks

the grade of hermaphoditism in the flower is variable. remember tat Catasetum flowers are not true male and female, but males with undeveloped female parts and viceversa. "Hermaphroditic" flowers are common to occur in Catasetum (in some species more than others, and in some hybrids more than in species).

Your flowers are too open and too colored for female flowers, which are normally green or green with some shade of reddish... furthermore, they are resupinate, which is typical of male flowers (differential resupination is an strategic for optimized pollination, however it is not present in the more primitive species, like Ctsm discolor). If you pay attention to the column of your flowers, you can see more male features: indeed, there is no antennae at the basis, but the column itself is very pointed (female columns are almost round), and have also some amount of underdeveloped pollinia (very clear on picture 3, where it has been already shot). This can happen as well in female flowers, but it is normally smaller than in your plant, and the tip of the column is still rounded.
Penang female flowers are similar to pileatum female flowers. In the attached pic, there is a pic of a female pileatum

Catasetum pileatum fleur femelle by pom666, on Flickr

[catasetum-ian]

Originally Posted by kavanaru

the grade of hermaphoditism in the flower is variable. remember tat Catasetum flowers are not true male and female, but males with undeveloped female parts and viceversa. "Hermaphroditic" flowers are common to occur in Catasetum (in some species more than others, and in some hybrids more than in species).

Your flowers are too open and too colored for female flowers, which are normally green or green with some shade of reddish... furthermore, they are resupinate, which is typical of male flowers (differential resupination is an strategic for optimized pollination, however it is not present in the more primitive species, like Ctsm discolor). If you pay attention to the column of your flowers, you can see more male features: indeed, there is no antennae at the basis, but the column itself is very pointed (female columns are almost round), and have also some amount of underdeveloped pollinia (very clear on picture 3, where it has been already shot). This can happen as well in female flowers, but it is normally smaller than in your plant, and the tip of the column is still rounded.

thank you for the detail description to the hermaphrodite flowers. i always look forward for your discussion about catasetinae, precise and detail. thanks a gazillion.

[isurus79]

Very nice looking Penang!

[hosshead]

I understand that the sex of the flower is determined by temperatures?
But I can't remember which temps set which gender.

I have this lost tag cat with male flowers....and, once I figure out how to upload photos again, I'll put'em up in here.
(My uploads always go horribly awry.... )

[catasetum-ian]

Originally Posted by hosshead

I understand that the sex of the flower is determined by temperatures?
But I can't remember which temps set which gender.

I have this lost tag cat with male flowers....and, once I figure out how to upload photos again, I'll put'em up in here.
(My uploads always go horribly awry.... )

so far i had only read about lighting influence of sexual dimorphism on catasetum flowers, have not come across anything about temperature. perhaps someone who had come across such article can enlightened me about this. thanks in advance
higher lighting condition favors development of female flowers. however logically high lighting intensity also means higher temperature.