Hermaphrodites! This is the first time I've had hermaphroditic flowers on a catasetum. Now I can say for sure that light levels play a role in the formation of male vs. female flowers. I have two other plants after this one which will have hermaphroditic or female flowers. They were all setting male buds when I overexposed them, light levels were about 8000 fc for 3 days, you can see by the sunburnt leaves in the photo. It was half intentional, half accidental. I wanted to see what they could take and pushed it a bit too far too fast. Ah well. Thank the good Lord for making this group forgiving.
I've harvested this pollen (you can see in the flower in the foreground the anther cap is gone), and I've put mormodes pollen on to test the effectiveness of the female mechanism, I don't know how fertile hermaphroditic flowers are. We'll see!
Catasetum Brent's Black Hawk
Linear Mode
