Graham

Will be there

Took me a while, but here are my picks from the day. Very broad pitchers with an interesting colour. Left: Strongly pubescent pitchers, the photo doesn't really do it justice. Right: White lid with a nice brownish pink pattern radiating from the base of the hood. Left: Picked for it's nice goblet shaped pitchers. Right: leuco hood with flava rugelii throat markings. There were a number of variations on this theme on the benches, looking at the photo's i think Phil beat me to the best plant for throat colour. Left: leuco top surface of lid, alata style dark red underside to lid, quite a striking contrast. Right: flava var. atropurpurea colouration with a yellow lid margin. My tallest pick, around 2 foot /60cm.

I would agree with Phil things were much improved over last year, i didn't do any counting at the time, but at a very (very) rough guess i would say there were something like eight rollerbeds two (?) meters wide by twenty (?) meters long full of seed grown hybrids in ten cm pots. That's over thirty thousand plants to choose from. I got the impression from Frank the open day was mainly motivated by his enthusiasm for the hobby, and as an oppotunity to discuss and display his Sarracenia hybridising in particular. I may have to put some witchhazell on my wallet to bring out the bruising, but have to say despite the sweltering heat and humidity it was a enjoyable day and i came away with eight new plants i am very happy with. Frank did tell me he was quite disappointed by the turnout, so an open day next year isn't a certainty, so if you missed this one, you may have missed your chance to look round one of the biggest CP wholesalers in Europe.

I'll be coming down on the Saturday. Looking forward to seeing how your Sarracenia hybrids have turned out since my last visit.

Fantastic

Excellent photo's of a rarely seen event.

Looking forward to seeing the photo's

Hi Earl, That's a lovely looking plant, particularly nice shape for a first generation cross. Have you considered selfing it to see if you can improve on the degree of variagation?

Marvelous pictures, thanks for posting them.

Darlingtonia 'Othello'

Lovely shot of the Scorpioides

That's just confusing matters They are in a slightly shadey spot, which may reduce insect capture slightly, though i do have one or two older pitchers on Darlingtonia plants now showing pitcher burn. I suspect the real secret is the size of my collection. I have long held there is one major positive and negative to having a big collection. The negative - the extra looking after it takes, the positive - there is always something looking particulary good.

Hi Linton, They're all third generation crosses, originating from initial crosses of the 'shark teeth' clone from Triffid Park crossed with a few of my best clones - Slacks giant, G7 etc. My original intention was just to produce bigger and better coloured dentate traps over two generations. Much to my surprise, some of the first generation crosses were semi dentate, suggesting the dentate character doesn't follow the classic dominant/recessive pattern you see in for example pigmentation of heterophylla Sarracenia, which piqued my curiousity as to what would result from crossing the most extreme forms over a number of generations. I am still keeping my fingers crossed for something unexpected, but so far its a pretty clear trend of the teeth slowly disappearing.

Looks like the ceph has it by two votes to none. As far as Ping hybrids go, in terms of number of species, five is the maximum i am aware of - gigantea X {[huahuapan DW2 X (hemiepiphytica X emarginata HL3)] X [laueana CP3 X (laueana "Type" X emarginata HL4)]}. If you're eagle eyed you will notice [huahuapan DW2 X (hemiepiphytica X emarginata HL3)] crops up in both the above formula and in the Ping pic description at the top of the page, it's a hybrid i made years ago (June 98) that i have used a few times in crosses.

Hi Jimfoxy, Two-er's crop up from time to time, three-er's are definitely a lot rarer. You're correct about the parentage, i chose the huahuapan for its markings and shape (its a favorite of mine), and that specific laueana clone for its large flower size.