Biotope One A Study of Flora and Fauna 
Several times a week I head downstairs to the makeshift plant tissue culture lab. Various specimen plants, vessels with cultures, and seed starting tubs sit around the shelves next to the equipment. I pick out contaminated jars that didn’t make the initiation process. I water the plants that need planting and repot the ones that need it. In the winter time there’s more to do as more plants build up waiting for the few months of warm weather we get here in Seattle.
Most of the equipment is makeshift for a tissue culture lab, an autoclave costs a lot more than a pressure cooker does. A 20 gallon All Glass aquarium serves as a small hood for transferring sterile clumps of plants to multiply or to place an explant in an initiation vessel.
Here are the updates for this week. I don’t always post updates but the echinodorus are coming along and there are a few other new cultures going so I thought we would share them with everyone.
This is drosera alba that is growing out in deli trays.
Drosera rotundifolia ’ems pond’ seedling starting to grow.
Cryptocoryne hudoroi in multiplication. Went in about a week ago with no leaves on it at all.
Cryptocoryne Hudoroi sitting happily in a bin.
Episcia Keewee x ? needing to be repotted into individual pots.
Anubias Nana in multiplication media. Its slow going but steady.
Various emersed plants, mostly aroids.
Various emersed plants mostly echinodorus
Bertolonia ‘Sooretama’ specimen.
Bin with cryptocoryne hudoroi growing emersed.
This is what happens when an explant gets infected. The piece of plant material wasn’t completely sterile when it went into the media.
