TRex (Tetrapanax papyrifer) ... now what?

[Las Palmas Norte]

Tetrapanax papyriferus about to bloom. What can I expect, assuming of course the weather is friendly?

Cheers, Barrie.

[Guy]

As an ivy relative, I'd expect a white small flower, smelling faintly of honey that develops into a spherical black seedhead. Never seen one flower though, so only educated guess.

[Dave Brown]

Sorry, can't help. I haven't got to that stage yet, but I think I heard someone say the frost killes them off.

[AndyC]

Snap!

It flowered last year as well but I couldn't find anything later on that looked like seed.
Does your plant produce suckers Barrie?

[Gaz]

Ours is also flowering this year, currently with frost fleece over it to see if we can keep it going.

[MarkD]

We're joining the club

Here are recent photos of ours:

newDSCF5672.JPG

newDSCF5675.JPG

Lots of our Araliads are flowering simultaneously. I wish they hybridise easily and produce viable seeds. Imagine a Schefflera x Tetrapanax One can fantasize

[AndyC]

Mark, yours looks like a T.rex rather than the ordinary T.papyrifer in pictures that Barrie and I have posted. The flowers are quite different being much more 'chunky' on the T.rex

[MarkD]

Yep it is a T.rex, forgot to label it

What happened when your t.rex flowered last year Andy?

[AndyC]

Mark, the flower head looked much like yours for weeks and then the frost came and clobbered it. The new main stem is flowering again this year but it is way behind yours.
At this rate my T.rex is never going to get above 5ft of stem whereas the T.papyrifer has about 9ft of stem.

[MarkD]

I'd rather it didn't flower actually as it's bound to get clobbered by the frosts anyway

Just like what you want I'd rather it concentrates on getting taller and taller, especially ours is near a pathway and at the moment we're putting up brushing past the big leaves rather than going under it's canopy

[Las Palmas Norte]

Does your plant produce suckers Barrie?

Very little Andy and none in the past two years. I'd imagine now with this flowering it will next season. It's been in for about 4 or 5 years now and this is the first flowering.

Cheers, Barrie.