Is this normal for Douglah flowers? (or any flowers)

nzchili · Nov 9, 2014

Hey guys, quick question. I know I have seen similar before but cant find it.

I have a Douglah plant whose flowers seem a little odd to me.

Basically they don't really open, and it appears that they just start growing into pods.
The middle section that usually swells into a pod seems unusually large..so large it cant be contained within the flower petals.
And the anthers that hold the pollen are really far away from the stamen (due to the size of the swelling pod)..
Also the anthers don't appear to actually have any pollen... yet the middle bit just seems to be swelling into pods..

So basically it seems the pods busting out of the flower before its even open, and I cant detect any pollen in there..

Is this normal for Douglah flowers?

Mr. Hill · Nov 9, 2014

I haven't.

Smokin James · Nov 9, 2014

I had some Habs that did that this year.

nzchili · Nov 9, 2014

here's another pic, i pushed the petals back a bit.. it looks like the stamen is a bit depressed and kind of wraps around and up the side of the pod to be closer to the anthers..weird.

SentencedToBurn · Nov 10, 2014

Thats freaky man, I have a douglah that's budding at the moment, probably still a few weeks till the flowers open but will see how that goes and will let you know if it looks the same.

Swampy_NZ · Nov 10, 2014

My yellow scorpion does the same thing.They just kinda explode into pods lol

thirdcoasttx · Nov 11, 2014

Wish I had that problem

Chilima · Nov 11, 2014

Since peppers are self polenating, it is possible your flowers polinated themself even before it where open. Some people even try to glue their pepper flowers so they dont open at all in order to keep some peppers as orginal to their strain as possible and eliminate cross polination with other peppers they have. (not sure how smart is to glue flowers shut tho but oh well... ive seen it done and its all over the internet).

Slizarus · Nov 11, 2014

The petals pop off after the pod starts maturing, glue works fine.

SentencedToBurn · Nov 14, 2014

Hey I just noticed my douglah is finally flowering, Here are the flowers - they seem to be open fine, but is it already growing a pod or is this what those flowers meant to look like?

stickman · Nov 15, 2014

How cold is it where you are in NZ? I had some that looked like that when I was over-wintering mine in an unheated cellar last winter. After I planted them outside when the weather warmed up they reverted to type.

nzchili · Nov 15, 2014

stickman said:
How cold is it where you are in NZ? I had some that looked like that when I was over-wintering mine in an unheated cellar last winter. After I planted them outside when the weather warmed up they reverted to type.

Temps are probably between approx 10c at night, and 18-20c during the day.
Those douglah's have been outside for several months, since it was colder than it is now so that could explain it