One thing no one has brought up is how to prevent you flower from being pollinated by the wrong pollen plant.Get you pod flower ready by bagging it in a bag made from nylon panty hose material. Some pollinaters will force their way into closed flowers!! As soon as the bud is big enough to easily open remove the stamens from the flower/every one. Then rebag and wait unles the bud matures and becomes receptive. When most flower buds are ready to be pollinated the stigma gets sticky, not dry. The pollen has to sprout on a moist surface or it dies. Do not ever put water on the stigma to get it moist,it will do this on it own time. After placing the pollen on the stigma rebag at once. No other pollinators can move pollen to your stigma because the nylon mesh keeps everything out. When I pollinate I remove every stamen from the entire flower I am working with. I have used this method since nylon hosiery was invented (a very long time ago). Nylon works well because it is so light weight it will not damage the flowers. Before nylon you could use silk or fine muslin to bag. By bagging you don't have to slice up the flower parts. I think some pollinates fail because the flower you are pollinating is badly damaged. In some years I would pollinate several thousand flowers, so I have a lot of experience with everything from orchid,daylilies and irids. Everyone considering doing this kind of job needs to read a book on flower anatomy so you know exactly where the stigma and pollen are. Sometimes pollen is very well hidden to people. Then assemble your tools (paintbrushes/artist size are great for moving pollen). Botanist have found the most fertile time for a flower to receive pollen is between 11am and noon on a warm, sunny day. Rain can ruin all your work! Be patient when trying to make a new hybrid because some take a lot of pollinations to produce one seed. Good Luck! Russ Hintz In a message dated 3/26/2013 8:21:26 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, gastil.buhl@gmail.com writes: And here is another illustration of where the stigma is, this time on Iris, which have flowers similar in shape to Moraea. Here, on our own PBS wiki, photographs with annotation by David Pilling http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/… click on 'Show pollination and flwoer structure details...' I have looked at Iris flowers up close for decades and not until now have I though to look for the stigma. Once you know where to look it is easy but it is not so easy to describe without illustrations. - Gastil _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.ibiblio.org http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/