Richard

I have grown this species for a number of years now. In summer I leave the pot in the water tray, I just hide it at the back behind some Sarras. I have also allowed some pots to become bone dry and all have survived so I would suggest keeping them in a way that is easiest for you!

This plant has a growth habit similar to U. intermedia, maybe in order to induce flowering the plant has to be threatened with drought. Has anyone tried allowing the water to evaporate to very shallow levels?

XXVII

Ah shucks Suzy, I gone all warm and blushy!

I have never been successful at getting this species to flower, my very first plant had a stem when I bought it! I believe it is a shy flowerer and needs exposure to very cold almost (but not quite!) freezing conditions to induce it.

There are only a few species of Utric that produce a float. Most other free floating aquatics just branch vigorously at the point of the bud. Without seeing pictures of both i couldn't tell you if it was U. Australis or vullgaris.

I seem to find Drosophyllum a lot tougher than people give them credit for, especially as seedlings. I always start my seed of in pots and stand them in the water tray until germinated. When I finally get round to it I prick them out and repot into a large 8" pot, at this stage they remain out of the water tray and are not disturbed any further. I do not need to worry about pot size, I cannot provide enough light during the winter so after a couple of years my plants begin to look somewhat straggly. I harvest the seed and start again!!

I was given a small Starter colony G violacea x lobata from a forum member. I planted it in pure sphagnum moss and placed it in a deep tub 1/2 filled with water at the back of my greenhouse. Within a couple of months it had spread to fill the pot and was flowering like mad (pictures are somewhere in the forum). I found it extremely easy, far easier than many terestrial Utrics but I found that it does need a higher temp in winter, anything too cool and the plant starts to sulk and look very sorry for itself. Interestingly, my plants all went crazy and all the traps in the pot strarted to bud and produce new rossettes so I would imagine that given a wide enough pot, huge colonies could be built up rather quickly.

I find the typical livida flowers will turn white when grown in anything but bright sunlight. otherwise they are a pale lilac. I have never grown the typical form, I never really cared much for it. I used to prefer the larger blue flowered form. Unfortunatley, it appears to be quite a tender little thing and I lost it in a heating incident last winter.

I never used to give mine any special treatment. I just stood it in the water trays with everything in the sumer and put it in the spare room for winter. each year It would produce a couple of stems of its intense blue flowers. It did get a little neglected in the winter and the compost came close to be completely dry on quite a few occasions. Wether this had any effect I do not know. One point I will mention though, DO NOT let any other Utric invade the pot (subulata or bisquamata) mine was rapidly choked out and i was unable to start another colony becasue the plant had formed very few leaves and I couldn't tell wich was biloba or the invader. Should anyone have a starter piece available......:)

I would imagine that the deformed leafs of wacky traps isn't a heredatory trait. Plants raised from the sedds of this particular plant are likely to be normal.

Is Hemiepiphytica tha same plant as oaxaca?

Well it looks like it has reared its not so ugly head! I have grown Vulgaris and am currently growing australis and neither produce a float, they just seem to branch madly at the site where the flower stem emerges. Has this survived in your pond over winter?

Vic, I cant see your picture wich is probably just as well! I just wanted to tell you how much i hate you! This is the one species of CP I have tried to grow more than any other. I have lost track of how many different packets of 'Polypompholyx' seeds I have bought over the years. Funny enough, I got my first pack of seeds to germinate (they were supposed to be westonii, obtained from marstons) and I had a very high germiantion rate, just on a standard peat/sand mix in a heated propogator. They grew slowly only producing 2 tiny leafs than they all collapsed and died. I think you have given me the urge to try again!

Also, Is the plant a single crown or a multi crown? Multi crowned plants that have been allowed to flower and have not been re-potted for a while do tend to decrease in vigour. I find the largest pitchers are obtained from freshly devided and repotted crowns that have had the flower stems removed.

D.binata will only set seed though if you have other seperate clones about. I believe it does not self pollinate. If you happen to have any of the other binata varieties around such as the t form or multifida then care should be taken as all these cross freely and will result in binata plants cropping up in every pot in your greenhouse. Not as difficult to controll as U. subulata however!

Yup, definatley U. peltata. It seems that this species has got a few flower forms. I once had a plant that was labelled U. peltata 'auyan tepui' wich had smaller flowers than the specimen I am currently growing and there was a small diamond like shape on the flower.

Drosera binata 'marston dragon' and all other D. binata's are not sterile but they will only set seed if they can be cross pollinated with a seperate clone. This species can actually be just as invasive as the smaller spatulate sundews. I have it crop up in pots from time to time. Why do you cut the flowers off? even if you don't want the seed i think they are worthy of saving and they don't appear to weaken the plant.

Flava var ornata. If it were a shade grown var rubricorpora plant (red tube) there would still likely be a lot of red suffused between the veins.

It may not loose its petals, but do the sexual organs persist? The anthers and the stigma? If it does then this takes us back to square one. The 'flower' becomes nothing more than a seed head.

Are they small and orange? I get these growing in a lot of my CP pots and to date they have never caused my plants any harm at all. Just remove and things should be ok!

All this has just given me the frightening realisation that I have seed of this species in my fridge and forgot to sow it last season. I hope the seed is still viable!

Looks like a normal healthy U. livida flower to me. Come summer when the plant is in full growth it will smother itself with many stems of flowers.

Trojon, All of a sudden everything makes complete sense!!! Odysseus, are their any gardening magazines, papers or similar where you are? You could always set up a yahoo group and advertise it. I am sure you can't be the only one!

Sean, can we have a picture of the leaves as well, maybe with something by them so we can get a sence of scale. Identifying a plant just from its flower alone can be very tricky!