I'd always wondered why my passionfruit leaves all had two little sticky balls at the base of each leaf.  Well, now I know!

Unlike the previously mentioned forms of mimicry, Gilbertian mimicry involves only two species. The potential host / prey drives away its parasite / predator by mimicking it, the reverse of host-parasite aggressive mimicry. It was coined by Pasteur as a phrase for such rare mimicry systems,[7] and is named after the American ecologist Lawrence E. Gilbert.[40]

This form of protective mimicry occurs in the genus Passiflora. The leaves of this plant contain toxins which deter herbivorous animals, however some Heliconius butterfly larvae have evolved enzymes which break down these toxins, allowing them to specialize on this genus. This has created further selection pressure on the host plants, which have evolved stipules that mimic mature Heliconius eggs near the point of hatching. These butterflies tend to avoid laying eggs near each existing ones, which helps avoid exploitative intraspecific competition between caterpillars — those that lay on vacant leaves provide their offspring with a greater chance of survival. Additionally, most Heliconius larvae are cannibalistic, meaning that on leaves older eggs will hatch first and eat the new arrivals. Thus, it seems that such plants have evolved egg dummies due to these grazing herbivore enemies. In addition, the decoy eggs are also nectaries, attracting predators of the caterpillars such as ants and wasps. [9] This acts as a further defense of the plant against the caterpillars.

So I've had lots of pentagonia grandifolia sprout, but I've lost all of them (I think) so far.  They seem very delicate to damping off but also drying out. 

I just had a new one germinate and want to treat it right.  It's currently in a tray growing in peat moss, loosely covered in plastic, as it germinated.  It's about 2 centimeters tall and still has its seed on it.

What would you recommend trying to give it the best chance of getting established, and when?

So I recently moved from Hafnarfjörður to the 112 district of Reykjavík, where I'm renting converted (well, 80%-finished-being-converted) industrial space as an apartment.  I chose the place because it's cheap, concrete floors, and ridiculously high ceilings for my plants.  Tonight I finished moving my plants into their home.  So, let's begin the tour!  Note: most plants I show I have multiple of, but I'm not going to bother taking a pic of every last one, lol 

First, the grow area (I could expand it threefold if necessary without impinging on my living area, and I'm only using about  70% of the area I've cordoned off):



To give a sense of its height:



A couple glances around:





... and up:





Now, on to the species.

Cape Gooseberry (Physalis peruvianis; Icelandic: blæjuber ("breezeberry")).  Basically a weed.  Was my first plant to have fruit reach maturity in Iceland, although my passionfruit and mango tried but failed earlier; I've gotten a few dozen off of them.  Stems break easily and it litters leaves, but everything it loses grows back twofold.  Never had a single pest on them, even spider mites.




Jamaican dwarf red banana (Musa acuminita.  Icelandic: banani).  All bananas seem to grows great indoors - just give them rich soil and tons of water.  The red has especially beautiful coloration.  Indoor bananas occasionally gets spider mites, but rarely a threat to the tree's life even if they go undetected for a while.  Also, note the last picture - I'm not sure what these are, but I saw them next to some spider mite webbing while photographing. 








Tamarind (Tamarindus indica.  Icelandic: none).  Pretty much minds its own business and grows at a moderate pace, I've never had problems with it.  I did however while doing closeups find a couple leaves (below) which had some mottling - possibly a fungus of some sort?  Doesn't seem to be a problem for any of my tamarinds as a whole, at least thusfar.




Acerola / barbados cherry (Malpighia emarginata.  Icelandic: none).  While this shot is a bit close in, the tree is huge - the main branch kinda droops, but if I keep it upright, the tree is about 3 meters tall.  It's fruited for me.  You can see it flowering here.  Low maintenance, fast growing, well suited for indoor gardening.



Dwarf cavendish banana (same species as the Jamaican Red): I actually picked this one up in Iceland, lol - the only fruiting tropical I've managed to find here.  People have indeed fruited bananas here - although contrary to widely reported myth, we're not "the largest banana grower in Europe" (that'd be Spain; bananas here have only been grown on an experimental basis, not commercially).



Passionfruit (Passiflora edulis; Icelandic: ástaraldin (lit: "lovefruit")): I forget which variety, and I don't remember the color of the flower, sadly!    I'll pay more attention the next time around    Grows quite well - the only pest problem I've ever had was a small amount of scale at one point, but the scale didn't really seem to thrive on it.  I wonder if it's aided by the sticky droplets it exudes at the base of each leaf?



Coffee (Coffea arabica.  Icelandic: kaffi).  Moderate-speed grower, generally pest free, likes moist soil but will tolerate dry, likes light but will tolerate shade... quite the little trooper    I had one actually get to flowering back when I lived in Iowa, but it was obviously too large to take with, I had to give it away.  But I think some of mine here are nearing flowering size, so I've got my fingers crossed. 




Pitaya / Dragonfruit (Hylocereus sp.; Icelandic: drekaávöxtur): Iceland has a region called the Dragon Zone (Drekasvæðið), where lots of oil has been found offshore.  Now I have my own "Dragon Zone"  in my grow area.   Dragonfruit grows well indoors, although not always super-fast.  Its tiny roots mean not much of a potting requirement.  Sometimes pieces break off, but that simply means you get more dragonfruit plants - they're trivial to root, you pretty much just have to drop them on some moist soil and leave them alone for a couple weeks.  And they're generally pretty carefree.




Longan (Dimocarpus longan; Icelandic: none): New seedlings, so I'm still learning. 



Spítalinn ("The Hospital"): High-light area for sick plants in need of extra nourishment.  There's a couple caryodendron sp. lurking in the back that are not at all sick, just freeloaders.



Cocona (Solanum sessiliflorum; Icelandic: none): Thusfar I've mostly had good things to say about plants indoors.  Cocona... not so much.  It's nearly died on me several times.  It'd be a great indoor plant except it's *highly* susceptible to spider mites.  I've taken to power washing the leaves every time I water and treating the leaves it as though it's a given that there's spider mites there.  And what do you know, at long last, flower buds!    Thanks cocona!




Let's move onto the shelves, where the smaller plants are.  But before we get there, where do they come from?  Well, this box:



And sometimes these trays as well:




Except the shelf on the far right, that's Sóttkví (quarantine)    The lemon verbena on the left had scale and the moringa on the right had a nearly-lethal spider mite infestation (it's another highly vulnerable species).



But anyway, new seedlings come to the bottom shelf until they've got leaves out:



Dwarf inchi (Caryodendron sp.; Icelandic: none).  You saw some of its fully-germinated siblings in the hospital view.  Inchi produces an edible nut, reportedly quite tasty.  The tree is rare in cultivation so it's hard to find information about!



Guanabana (Annona muricata; Icelandic: none, but I've seen people sharing "graviola" health links on Facebook, so it'll probably end up as "gravíóla").  In order, shelf 1, 2, 4





Rollinia / biriba (Rollinia deliciosa; Icelandic: none).  Oh, I can sooo not wait for fruit    In order, shelf 1, 2, 2, 4






A couple rollinia, a couple Red Strawberry Guava (Psidium littorale; Icelandic: gúava), and a OH MY GOD WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?  Lol, I have no clue - sadly, I can't read my handwriting on the label on this one.  Well, time will tell if this strange creature survives.   



Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus: Icelandic: none).  Don't know much about raising them, but they germinate well!    Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of my larger jacks - oh well!



Pentagonia (Pentagonia grandifolia; Icelandic: none): Oh, I really hope at least one of these makes it.  They produce a fascinating-looking flower/fruit structure, but I've lost more of then than I care to admit to damping off.  :Þ



Second shelf: seedlings with newly opened true leaves and otherwise small seedlings.



Bael (Aegle marmelos: Icelandic: none, but I have to keep resist spelling it Bæl with an "æ"    ): Good germination rate even though the seeds weren't super-fresh.  Never tried the fruit but I've seen people both rave about it and hate it.



Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum; Icelandic: risafura (lit: "giant pine")): Okay, not a tropical, although it does have limited cold tolerance!  Biggest tree in the world, in baby pictures.  I hope to end up with 30 of them and I'm hoping at least one or two will survive the climate here. 



Western Redcedar (Thuja plicatia; Icelandic: rísalífviður (lit: "giant life wood")): Okay, even *less* of a tropical, but... basically, a fallback plan.  Gets to about 2/3rds the height and 2/3rds the width of a sequoia, but still a massive tree, and more importantly, adapted to cold climates.  But man, these seedlings are delicate.



And this one is... is... dang, I don't know, because the builder moved these seedlings when they were on the ground and didn't move their label with them!  :þ  If anyone has a guess, let me know! 



Blackberry Jam Fruit (Randia formosa; Icelandic: none).  Has little, neat-looking seeds.  Supposedly tastes like blackberry jam.  We'll find out!



Papayuelo (Carica goudotiana): Has neater-looking seeds.  Seriously, the seeds are like tiny kiwano melons    While the plant is related to papaya, I really hope it tastes better than papaya! 



Dabai (Canarium odontophyllum; Icelandic: none): Supposedly tastes a bit like avocado, but you have to soak it first.  I'm definitely curious. 



Third shelf: power converter, gardening supplies, seedlings in oversized pots, and salak.



Red Salak (Salacca affinis; Icelandic: none): Salak (aka, snakefruit) is a really alien-looking plant at all stages of life, but especially when young.  Someone posted a thread recently about how they germinate, involving sticking a plug out, which then gets branching spindly roots.  Then it pushes a column up, then the column puts out a tall spine... eventually it'll become leaves, supposedly   



Bali Salak (Salacca zalacca var bali; Icelandic: none): I really hope that the "spine" here is supposed to be brown and woody for bali salak, because it's green and lifelike for all my S. affinis, but brown and woody for all my S. zalacca.



Fourth shelf: moderate-sized young seedlings



"SL sapote" (Matisia sp.: Icelandic: none).  Supposedly fruits like jaboticaba, but with 8cm fruit with scant pulp.  I've been having a problem with some of them losing leaves to what appears to be a fungus (see the below pics); any tips would be appreciated!





This carnivorous plant was another store purchase.  Sadly, they didn't list the species.  :Þ



Pomegranate (Punica granatum; Icelandic: granatepli): I treat them so badly but they keep trying 



Marang (Artocarpus odoratissimus; Icelandic: none): Oh I so can't wait to try this fruit... same genus as jackfruit, but often said to be even better.



Herrania (Herrania sp.; Icelandic: none): A relative of chocolate.  Fruits in a similar manner.  Another fruit I really look forward to trying. 



Yoco (Paulinia yoco; Icelandic: none): Both the plants in the foreground and background are yoco - young leaves are reddish.  A relative of guarana, with very high caffeine content.  Vining, so that'll work out nice for me, it's easy to find space for vines and they're good at intercepting "lost light".



And now, for the top shelf:

Pineapple (Ananas comosus; Icelandic: annanas): Just a rooted supermarket pineapple.  But hey, it's a start 



Guava (like above): I've got an older guava here as well.  Started growing slow but has really picked up the pace as of late.  Minor to moderate mite susceptibility.  I gave it a nice place by an LED light because I'd really like to get it to fruiting to find out just what variety of guava it is!




Vanilla (Vanilla planifolia; Icelandic: vanilla): My prior experience with them says they're quite susceptible to root rot and grow slowly while young.  I've got three this time around, hopefully at least one will make it 



Santol (Sandoricum koetjape; Icelandic: none): First pick is my biggest but weird-looking santol.  The next pic is a smller but regular one.  And the third is what they look like when germinating - kind of weird, the seed comes up, then stops, then the plant comes out the side.





And of course, I've got probably about 10 species which have germinated but not yet come out of the ground (jaboticaba, a couple really lucky miracle fruit, cabelluda, jamun, a number of eugenia and garcinia sp., etc) and another 10 or so which haven't yet germinated (as far as I know) - macadamia, cola, nutmeg, etc.

Finally, just a couple random pics to wrap up 

1) First person to guess what this is a picture of gets five Karen Points:



2) My supplies.  Though I still need to fetch my container (~10kg) of micro and macronutrients. 



3) Icelandic hose fixtures are totally incompatible with US ones.  It's nice having a spigot in my plant room! 

So, my biggest banana plant, a dwarf jamaican red, is getting up there in size  - it has a nice thick truck about 1,5 meters tall and the upper leaves add an extra 1/4 to 3/4 meter onto that, depending on the leafing cycle (the pot's another 3/4 meters, so overall it's well over my head    ).  Since it's supposed to max out at around 2m, I imagine it's nearing maturity.  I'm wondering how big of a pot it'll ultimately need to flower and fruit.  I'm not home so I can't measure its pot, but I think it's probably in the ballpark of 35 gal, give or take.  I don't leave suckers on, I remove and repot them all, so it has the pot to itself.

Also - any tricks to encouraging flowering/fruiting?  Or just let nature take its course?  Should I keep fertilizing, change my mix, etc (I give them a time-release mixed-but-relatively-N-heavy fert because I know bananas love nitrogen)?

So, I managed to mess up by both losing my labels on a couple of my plants before I memorized them, *and* by losing my list of seeds I got from Jim West (who I believe is the source of the seedlings here, so the list: http://www.guaycuyacu.net/seed_sell.html ).  I had ordered by giving him a giant list of possibilities and letting him send whatever of them he had on-hand.

Now, for the unknown-ers!

A)

B)

Another one which I believe is the same species, just younger, so you can still see the seed:



C) Two in a pot, from something that must have had a large seed given how fast it grew compared to all the others:



You can see a stark change in the stem after the seed leaves:



Any guesses? 

So, the other day I noticed that one of my 6 or so pachira aquatica / malabar chestnut seeds has started to germinate.  I would expect that any others that are going to do so will probably do so within the next week or so.  I know that such trees are often sold with braided trunks in east asia, as an attractive style for being an indoor houseplant - they plant three seeds in a pot and braid the trunks as they grow.  It looks nice, but would doing so decrease my odds of ever getting fruit off them versus just planting one seed per pot?  That's always my ultimate goal, even if it's often a long shot   

Heya.  My Physalis peruviana are now ripening here and I've sampled my first couple.  I find the flavor too much along the lines of "acidic tomato" to just eat out of hand.  Any suggestions for good uses for them? 

BTW, for anyone considering it: they grow incredibly well indoors.  They took off in size, flowered and fruited fine without pollinators, and seemed immune to any of the pest problems I've had at varying points in time (spider mites, scale, etc).  They did most of their growing in the winter, which here in Iceland means almost no natural sunlight coming in through the window.  Downsides: they drink up the water like crazy (they don't need a big pot, but I'd recommend one so you don't have to flood the thing every other day!) and they shed leaves (especially if you don't water often enough ).  Their aggressive growth habit can also lead them to outgrow and thus shade adjacent plants. 

So I was shopping at Hagkaup today and I noticed that, shock of shocks, they had guanabana!  Well... kind of.  They sure looked like guanabana.  But they were hard and brown (not at all green in the slightest).  A storeworker assured me that they were guanabana, so I bought one and took it home.  It was utterly inedible.  When sliced (with great effort), it was half brown inside.  The interior was the texture of rubber and tasted nasty, varying degrees of bitter.  I collected the seeds, which are a perfect match for guanabana seeds, and put them in bags to germinate.

So, my first question is: I am I right to assume that it was indeed guanabana, but just highly overripe?
Secondly, what do you think about growing such seeds - are they likely to grow, are they likely to produce a reasonable fruit (unlike the parent!), etc?

Sorry, I forgot to take a picture before I completely and utterly destroyed it chopping it up for its seeds!

So, the last banana plant I owned before I moved to Iceland reached about five feet tall at the trunk (6-9 measured at the leaves) without producing a pup before I had to give it away.  My current is 4 feet at the trunk and has produced 4 healthy pups in the past 2 weeks alone!  If this keeps up I'm going to have to turn into a banana tree salesman.  Is there anything I can do to encourage it to focus its energies on vertical growth or am I just going to have to tolerate the heavy pupping?

Quick summary: I live in Iceland.  Nobody keeps mangos here.  I had carrie.  It died due to a combination of spider mites and my attempts to treat them (more the latter in the case of the mango).   Importing of live plants or scions is extremely difficult - if not smuggled, that is, they have to come from a licensed grower and the grower has to be willing to ship to Iceland (very few are, and those who are charge a premium, on top of the already very high shipping costs).

Basically, seeds are far, far cheaper and easier.

Now, as for the question.  I was thinking about purchasing a couple polyembryonic mangos and planting the seeds.  My concerns are, is there a dwarf polyembryonic mango suitable enough to pot culture that it could fruit in a (quite large) pot?  My carrie was flowering when it died.  :Þ  I don't know whether a polyembryonic seedling would be so favorable.

What are your thoughts, all?

My mango tree is flowering - in Iceland!!!    Wonder if anyone has ever done that before, flower a mango so far north? 

Time to see if I can get it to fruit.    If you have any tips, please let me know.

I swear this is on topic... see me through to the end here    I was climbing Mt. Esja today and, well... wait for it...



Wait for it...



Wait for it...



Wait for it...



Wait for it...



Wait for it...



Wait for it...

Drekaávöxtur á Toppnum á Esjunni

I was thinking to myself, what would be the most improbable thing to find on top of an Icelandic mountain...  hehehe    Here's a better pic:

http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj169/KarenRei/S1230027.jpg

He's just a baby, of course.

So for a long time I've just been guessing at this on a lot of plants, and thought it'd be a good idea to elicit some feedback.  What is your experience with the soil moisture needs/tolerances of various plants?  Would they prefer it to stay mostly or very wet, or would they prefer it dry out between waterings?  Here's what I'm growing (from memory; I'll probably miss a couple) and what I (think) I know so far.

Acerola: ?
Bacupari: ?
Banana: Wet.  My mother managed to drown a pup once but it required a weak pup in a pot without holes to do so    Mine have always loved me for keeping their soil moist at all times and complained when I don't.
Bay laurel: ?
Cacao: Wet, I think.
Cashew: Either?
Cherimoya: ?
Coffee: Either wet or dry; they seem to be pretty hardy plants.
Dragonfruit: I would think dry, but it seems to tolerate or even enjoy wet just fine.
Guava: Loses leaves if it gets too dry, so I'd have to say wet.
Jaboticaba: Wet
Macadamia: ?
Mango: Dry.  Lost one to root rot years ago, don't want to do that again.
Meyer Lemon: I would think dry, but seems to enjoy the water, so I don't know
Moringa: Dry
Olive: Dry
Orange: I would think dry, but seems to enjoy the water, so I don't know
Passionfruit: Either wet or dry, within reason.
Pineapple: I would have thought dry, but they seem to grow at a crawl if dry but take off if wet.
Pomegranate: ?
Rollinia: Seems to prefer wet.
Vanilla: Dry (lots of forums of people posting about losing vanilla to root rot; I don't want to repeat that)

Stuff that hasn't sprouted yet:

Acai: ?
Chinese jujube: ?
Cocona: ?
Feijoa: ?
Kiwano: Tried growing these once before a while back and they all died young, never quite sure why (I suspected that it might have been spider mites, as the leaves looked suspect, but I never saw the buggers, so it could have been a moisture issue or something else).  So I don't really know.
Lemon mangosteen: ?
Sugar apple: ?
Tamarind: ?
Yerba mate: ?

I'm not listing common garden plants -- wrong forum, and generally really easy to grow.  I'm also growing Thuja plicatia, but that's not a tropical and its moisture requirements are best described as "tricky", at least in the seedling stage.  I think I've got a handle on it now, though... time will tell.  I'm hoping that some day, long after I'm dead, they'll become the tallest trees in Iceland    They're the only "giant" tree (as much as 2/3rds the height and girth of a sequoia, in good conditions) that's cold tolerant.