Genlisea aurea?

[Christian]

Hello,

I got this plant labeled as Genlisea filiformis 'Chapada Dos Guimares'. It finally flowered. Having seen the flower, i am nor more sure, that this is really a G. filiformis. I think it rather is a G. aurea. What do you think?

Christian

[Fernando Rivadavia]

Hey Christian!

That is quite a strange flower! It looks more like G.aurea than anything else, but the spur seems a little long. Maybe it's just a freak flower, wait 'till the next one opens... Send pics of the leaves!!

G.filiformis is smaller, the lower lip is trilobed, and the spur has an obtuse tip. Check the link below, I think this represents a typical G.filiformis:

http://home.sdirekt-net.de/mwelge5/arten/g..._filiformis.htm

BTW: The correct spelling is "Chapada dos Guimaraes". ;) This sandstone escarpment is in W Brazil, near the border with Bolivia and Paraguay (which suggests it may be found in these 2 countries as well).

Best Wishes,

Fernando Rivadavia

[Markus]

It has already been stated by several growers that these plants with this location data are definitely a form of G. aurea.

The plant shown in the above link to the website of Matthias and me is most likely G. filiformis but after talking to a friend there are some characters of the true species which doesn’t fit with the plants we grow as G. filiformis.

Cheers,

Markus

[Fernando Rivadavia]

Hello Markus!

Please tell us what these characters are! The flowers certainly are typical G.filiformis. Is it something in the flower scape?

Best Wishes,

Fernando Rivadavia

[vic brown]

This is a very timely topic, as the plant that Dieter sent me a couple of years ago opened it's first flower this week.

Is this the same plant? It didn't come with location data. It certainly doesn't have an obviously 3-lobed lower lobe and the spur looks the same. The leaves a quite small, 2-3 mm long.

Vic

[gardenofeden]

do you find that "aurea" grows best with the water at compost level?

[Christian]

Hi,

Here are some pictures from the leafs of my plant:

@Vic: Based on the leafs i would say, we do not have the same plant.

We will have to wait for a second flower. Then it should be clear, if the one above is an abnormal one or not. Btw, the flower is the biggest i have so far seen seen in all my Genlisea!

Christian

[Markus]

Hi Fernando,

as far as I know, the true G. filiformis should form single rosettes and not such huge clumps that the plants I grow as G. filiformis form. My plants build several flower stalks nearly 15 cm in height and covered with dispersed hairs whereas the true species should have very short inflorescences only a few centimeters high. Wether they should be glabrous and/or hairy I don’t know. G. filiformis is also an annual in the wild but I don’t know if this is the same for cultivated plants!?

As far as I know the seeds of the plant originally came from Allen Lowrie and have been sold as G. pallida for a while. There were several discussions about the plant and finally we came to the conclusion that this species is more identical to G. filifomis than to any other of the yelliow-flowered species of South-America.

Vic, from my observation of cultivated plants Genlisea flowers can be very variable especially the first flower is not always much typical. It also depends on growing conditions.

The plants sold as G. filiformis which are indeed G. aurea are a bit different to some other location forms of G. aurea.

Here is a typical flower of G. aurea. As you can see the spur is bent forward whereas the spur of your flower is bent inward.

This is G. aurea from Itacambira, Minas Gerais state, Brazil which is a bit different in shape and colour...

@Stephen: G. aurea grows surrounded by running water oftenly slightly submerged. I try to immitate this for my cultivated plants and it works quite fine.

Cheers,

Markus

[gardenofeden]

@Stephen: G. aurea grows surrounded by running water oftenly slightly submerged. I try to immitate this for my cultivated plants and it works quite fine.

Cheers,

Markus

thanks :)

[Fernando Rivadavia]

Hi guys,

Did I understand right, is this plant the same as the one Barry Meyers-Rice calls G.pallida?

Vic, your plant also has an unusually long spur, but also seems closer to G.aurea in my opinion. In fact, is this the same clone as Christian's plants? As for the leaves, only 2-3mm in length? This seems extremely small for any Genlisea, did you measure it all the way from the base, including the petiole? Are the leaves natuarally covered with a viscous mucus or is that just water on the leaves?

Christian, your rosettes seem to be very compact and have many leaves, which is typical of G.aurea, and not G.filiformis. I think it looks very much like Vic's rosettes, only dry. Strangely, they seem to have no mucus on them...

Markus, you are correct that G.filiformis usually does not form compact rosettes, but the length of the flower scape is extremely variable, from less than 1cm up to 20cm or more (I'd have to check my herbarium specimens :) ).

As for the hairs, G.aurea is densely covered with glandular (and maybe a few eglandular?) hairs while G.filiformis is only sparsely covered with glandualr hairs. The inflorescences are also more robust and flowers larger in G.aurea. This is what leads me to believe these pics are all forms of G.aurea, independent which way the spurs are pointing.

Take Care,

Fernando Rivadavia

P.S. From Bob Ziemer's photo finder, these are the ones I consider clearly typical G.filiformis:

http://www.nepenti.com/rosliny/big/Genlisea_pallida2.jpg

http://www.nepenti.com/rosliny/big/Genlisea_pallida3.jpg

http://www.nepenti.com/rosliny/big/Genlisea_pallida5.jpg

http://www.plantarara.com/carnivoren_galer...iformis%203.JPG

http://www.mcef.ep.usp.br/carnivoras/Portu...html#filiformis

http://www-cp.stech.co.jp/cp/utri/G-pallida_e.html

http://www.omnisterra.com/botany/cp/pictur..._filiformis.jpg

Best Wishes,

Fernando Rivadavia

[Markus]

Yes Fernando, the G. filiformis shown in the photos on my website is the plant which was spreaded as G. pallida.

Here is another photograph of Matthias shown in the German Forum where you can see the significant differences

between G. aurea (left) and G. filiformis (right)...

Cheers,

Markus

[Fernando Rivadavia]

Hello Markus!

>Here is another photograph of Matthias shown in the German Forum where you can see the significant differences between G. aurea (left) and G. filiformis (right)...

Yes in this pic it's very clear the size difference and even the fat spur of G.filiformis (although it's unusually pointy). These are the true species.

>Yes Fernando, the G. filiformis shown in the photos on my website is the plant which was spreaded as G. pallida.

OK, so if the plant Barry calls G.pallida is the one in the link below, then he definitely has G.filiformis! But I wonder why his flowers so different??

http://home.sdirekt-net.de/mwelge5/arten/g..._filiformis.htm

Take Care,

Fernando Rivadavia

[Markus]

Hi Fernando,

I’m also wondering why the flower of Barry’s plant look so different. I can only estimate that the flower in the below link is not a typical flower. I often have observed that flowers of Genlisea can be very variable in different growing conditions. Maybe Barry is so kind to help us with another photo of his plant and we’ll see if there are any differences…

http://www.sarracenia.com/photos/genlisea/gpall01.jpg

As far as I know all plants in cultivation come from Tim Malcom who again got his plants from Barry. This is also true for the plants BestCarnivorousPlants sold last year. They now relabelled it on their current price list.

Cheers,

Markus

[sundewmatt]

As far as I know the seeds of the plant originally came from Allen Lowrie and have been sold as G. pallida for a while. There were several discussions about the plant and finally we came to the conclusion that this species is more identical to G. filifomis than to any other of the yelliow-flowered species of South-America.

The plant which is being incorrectly called pallida came from my collection. It came up as a weed.

Fernando was here and identified himself it as G.filiformis. I sent some to Barry Meyers Rice with this label of G.filiformis, but he decided to relabel it pallida, even though I knew for sure that it came from Brazil and told him Fernando IDed it as filiformis. I thought it was very unusual considering pallida occurs far away from Brazil in places where I don't think any CPer has collected anything from...

That's the story behind this.

These filiformis of mine grow dense clumps.

Matt

[Christian]

Hi,

Thanks for all the information! In the meanwhile my plant has opened a second flower. Here is a picture of it:

Seems as if the first flower of my plant was unusual. It looks very much like the one Markus has posted as "typical" G. aurea.

Christian

[Dieter]

This is a very timely topic, as the plant that Dieter sent me a couple of years ago opened it's first flower this week.

Is this the same plant? It didn't come with location data. It certainly doesn't have an obviously 3-lobed lower lobe and the spur looks the same. The leaves a quite small, 2-3 mm long.

Vic

Vic,

did I send you the plant labelled as G. aurea or G. filiformis? The latter ID was discussed several times already (in the German forum, if I remember correctly) and the agreement was that it is G. aurea. Sorry for the confusion.

The G. pallida (or G. filiformis) flowered for me during my absence. Thus I did not have a chance to take some pictures. Now I will have to wait for the next flower scape.

Cheers,

Dieter

Edit: I removed Vic's pictures from the quotation.

[vic brown]

Dieter,

Not to worry, it's a nice, large-flowered Genlisea, just need to change the label. :).

Vic

[Barry-Rice]

Hey Folks,

Interesting discussion on the cultivation of Genlisea aurea. I've never had very good luck with this plant---I certainly haven't gotten it to flower! I'll try submersing it a bit.

Regarding ye ancient debate of the pale Genlisea that I labelled G. pallida on my site.

The pale flowered plant I have photographed on my site consistently produced flowers with that shade, time and time again. Meanwhile, other Genlisea in my collection do not produce weird flowers. I no longer have the plant because during one of my collection-trimmings, I gave this plant away. I'm doing research on native aquatic Utricularia, and am (as always) short on space.

On my newest revision of my FAQ, I have taken to referring to the plant G. "filiformis." A complete bit of text from the FAQ reads:

You may puzzle over the table entry G. "filiformis". So have I! This is a plant that is commonly cultivated and sold under the name G. filiformis. When I first started growing this plant, I used my usual assumption that whatever was on the label was not to be trusted, and I assumed nothing about its identification. (This was a well-earned assumption, because I am actually relating my second attempt to grow G. filiformis---the first time, the so-called G. filiformis turned out to be nothing more or less than Utricularia bisquamata!)

When it started flowering, it keyed quite readily as Genlisea pallida, an African species. Unfortunately, my plants never produce seed or even enlarged fruit, so I could not observe it in the fruiting condition (which would help the identification some). Even so, the identification was straightforward.

Meanwhile, my source for this plant insisted up and down that this specimen came from collecting trips made by Fernando Rivadavia in Brazil. If so, it obviously could not be the African Genlisea pallida, and must instead be a South American species. I returned to my dissection microscope and keys, but try as I might to force the outcome, the plant simply would not key as G. filiformis. I tried, oh how I tried...

So the mystery of this plant remains. Perhaps G. filiformis is more variable than the published keys allow. Perhaps the plant known as G. "filiformis" is a new species. Perhaps somewhere, somehow, some seed contaminations with African stock occurred.