Hi Folks, At 01:36 PM 11/24/2004 -0800, you wrote: >what the heck is an embryo rescue? >tsuh yang Sometimes in crosses, if the genetics of the two parents are not compatible enough, an embryo will form (ovule in the flower's ovary + pollen gives an embryo) but no endosperm. Also, because of insufficient hormone production by the fertilized ovary, the fruit eventually aborts. However, sometimes, if one removes the embryonic seed from the flower ovary -- would-be seed pod -- and if one then places the embryo on plant tissue culture nutrient medium, the embryo will still develop into a plant. In the wide crosses like Nerine X Lycoris and Crinum X Hippeastrum, it would probably always be necessary to use embryo rescue tissue culture to get the hybrid plant. Especially in the world of Clivia, many wide crosses have been attempted using Clivia as the seed or berry parent. Success has often been claimed, but these have never so far as I know been carried out rigorously enough to preclude the possibility of accidental self-pollination of the Clivia from its own pollen or that of another Clivia in the neighborhood. Clivia pollen is very light and fluffy. If you walk briskly past a blooming clivia, there will be a faint cloud of Clivia pollen blown off into the surrounding air by your wake. The resulting "hybrids" almost always turn out to look just like an ordinary Clivia. So successfully making a very wide intergeneric hybrid is not a simple thing to do. I hope this helps explain the process and why it is used. Jim Shields in central Indiana ************************************************* Jim Shields USDA Zone 5 Shields Gardens, Ltd. P.O. Box 92 WWW: http://www.shieldsgardens.com/ Westfield, Indiana 46074, USA Tel. ++1-317-867-3344 or toll-free 1-866-449-3344 in USA