Are these female flowers?
 

My first Catasetum(Doris’ Choice) seems like it is about bloom and I’m looking for confirmation as to whether or not these are female flowers—they sure look the part.

I’m not super proud of it, but I’m happy that it survived long enough for me to be able to ask this question!

Yes indeed!

Thanks Louis!

I had my suspicions when they had begun taking on a more pitcher-like appearance…I was hoping for males, but I’ll take anything I can get!

I had made a mistake and this plant wound up being fed at only~10PPM nitrogen up until three weeks ago; hopefully I can get another growth on this plant this year to experiment with.

Also, I have to admit that even with watering 5x a day with near-daily rain and stifling humidity, the root velamen would be bright white again within an hour or two. I don’t want stick a glob of moss up there if I don’t have to, so I’m wondering if I can keep this plant growing long enough for older root mass to accumulate and act like moss to retain more moisture for longer.

Some updates with clearer photos…

Well done! These might not be as showy as the male flowers, but everything I've read suggests female flowers mean the plant is very healthy.

Thank you David! Up until very recently, I thought I just sucked and they were two big, upside-down, “unripe” male flowers; things began clicking for me when I saw the big hole and realized they weren’t upside down or going to “ripen” any more. Not a tomato, but at 100PPM nitrogen it gets the same concentration of nitrogen that my tomaters get during season albeit in vastly smaller quantities:biggrin:

I reached out to the fellow that sold me the plant as well as Fred at SVO; despite growing in a very different manner from those two gentlemen, both acknowledged that the plant looked healthy and happy just as you have.

I know my decision to mount this plant was the worst one for it in terms of keeping its feet wet, but I’m going to leave it in the tree and keep at it 5 times a day because I’m a bonehead with the energy to spare and a somewhat conducive environment. At one point it was my only Catasetum, now it is my only mounted Catasetum! Between the mount, the established plants in PET, and the haul of seedlings in just sphagnum, I figured I could experience just about every point on the spectrums of light, fertilizer, and water within my own environment.