I’ve been making hybrid aloe and gastrolea seedlings from my own collection for about a year now, and in my curiosity I looked up whether plants can combine genetics from more than one father in the same seed, which is called polyspermy. This is different than seed pods on the same raceme containing different parentage (one flower being fertilized by one neighbor and another by a different one), which is a common phenomenon; the type of polyspermy in plants that I’m talking about means that one seed has three (or more) biological parents. The answer is apparently yes, but it’s such new research that there’s not yet clear information about which plants can and which cannot; proving it’s even possible only happened four years ago!

I think it’s pretty cool how much there still is to learn and research and document in the world!