18 replies to this topic

[mantrid]

An interesting defect. I think there must be about 7 or 8 fused flower stalks on this G16. Its totally sapped all the energy of this plant. It has hardly produced any growth from last year. Because of the natural dying off of the leaves its now much smaller than it was before.

[FlytrapRanch]

mantrid, on 03 July 2011 - 23:56 PM, said:

An interesting defect. I think there must be about 7 or 8 fused flower stalks on this G16.

Very interesting. I occasionally see a fused flowerstalk on a Venus Flytrap (photo of one of my Royal Red Flytraps below) but your plant's is the most fusing I've ever seen. Thanks for posting the photo and topic.

[mmlr38]

Whoa!  Like Steve, I've occasionally seen fused flower stalks, but nothing of that caliber.  Very cool!

[TheInactiveMoth]

Wow! That looks mad - I've never seen that before either!

[Amar]

That's the weirdest defect I have ever seen!

[Thomas Straubmuller]

Awesome! I think that´s very unusual!

Cheers,
Thomas

[Daniel G]

Phwoooo!
That's just incredible!

It's the first time i've seen this phenomenon, and, of that ammoint, the best i've seen!

Thanks for sharing!

[Trev]

I think it's called crestate or cristate growth, happens a lot on cacti.





Trev.

[Sebulon]

Oh my, if one flowerstalk takes a lot of power from a young plant, I wonder how much of an endeavor that giant megainflorescense is for the plant!

[mantrid]

Later shot of the same head. Should produce lots of seeds





Another I took at the same time. Just a capensis but Ive always liked this view when the light is behind the dew.

[Daniel G]

Wow! It's doing well.
You'll definetly get a bumper harvest from that!

[carnivoor]

Has anybody ever tried using these fused stalks as cuttings? Do they make little plants like a "normal" stalk or don't they produce plants at all?
I've never had a fused stalk (don't have that many adult plants yet) and I wonder if it would be worth the effort of cutting them up and planting them should I ever come across one.

[mantrid]

carnivoor, on 23 July 2011 - 12:41 PM, said:

Has anybody ever tried using these fused stalks as cuttings? Do they make little plants like a "normal" stalk or don't they produce plants at all?
I've never had a fused stalk (don't have that many adult plants yet) and I wonder if it would be worth the effort of cutting them up and planting them should I ever come across one.

Dont see why it shouldnt. The plantlets grow from the young cells of the imature stalk. The stalk base is 6 or 7cm across so in theory it may even produce dozens of plantlets. I would have used it for a cutting but Im collecting seeds this year.

[PLATINUMVFT]

Woah, holy crap, thats the thickest flower stalk ive ever seen O_o

[Alexis]

In theory, there is now a massive area for photosynthesis. Over the life of the flower stalk it should harvest far more energy than it took to create. This might change if a mass of seeds are produced though!

As for sapping energy, it may be case that the massive surface area has just disturbed the structure of the rhizome. You might see more and more growth points and offshoots ; not because of a lack of energy, but because the odd growth has caused it to split.

[loligo1964]

Must be the Dionaea - broccoli variant I have heard so much about . . .

[Trev]

I've never bothered to try a cutting from a crestate dionaea stem, I tried a willow once but it didn't last. Lots of plants do this occasionally,  but most revert to normal soon after, cacti and succulents seem to be the only ones that are stable.

This is a spaghetti squash in my garden a few years ago:


One of my neighbours succulents went like it 5 or 6 years ago so I grabbed a cutting from him and it's still going:


Trev

Edited by Trev, 03 August 2011 - 11:18 AM.

[Gekon]

Are you all live near Fukushima or something? They all look amazing!

Edited by Gekon, 04 August 2011 - 10:06 AM.

[Deadly Weapon]

Flytraps are not the only plants that "suffer" from fused flowestalks. Picture of a dandelion from a Finnish news site.

Edited by Deadly Weapon, 03 September 2011 - 11:49 AM.