Jump to content

Tuberous and other drosera


Recommended Posts

Dear all,

this season many of my tuberous and SA drosera species appear relatively early at the substrate surface. The first wave of plants appeared already in august (does this tell something about the summer we had?) and some plants reached already quite a decent size like a D. modesta with 30+ cm.

I will start with a curiosity: A not yet completely identified plant grown from seeds. It is a species from Northern Queensland found somewhere along the Sandy Tate River. It might be a D. peltata and the first seedlings do at least not contradict that. From the first batch of seeds (sown together with some D. indica) I recently obtained 3 seedlings. One of those develops quite qickly. After forming a tiny seedling rosette for a while it produced 3 longer leaves and then started into erect growth. The other two seedlings are still in the seedling rosette stage.

Drosera%20sp.%20Sandy%20Tate%20River%201.jpg

One of the longer rosetted leaves. The smaller rosette is also visible.

Drosera%20sp.%20Sandy%20Tate%20River%202.jpg

The first leave on the stem

Drosera%20sp.%20Sandy%20Tate%20River%203.jpg

But let us get back to the larger plants. D. whittakeri ssp. aberrans always is one of the early starters. This is a form which will get deep red over time (not too difficult to imagine as it is already quite colourful).

Drosera_whittakeri_ssp_aberrans.jpg

Drosera tubaestylis also is one of the early birds. This one is a new addition from this summer and it starts even earlier than my other forms (thanks, Iggy)

Drosera_tubaestylis.jpg

There are some early appearing species among the erect growing species as well. D. graniticola did not leave that impression for me yet, but this season I already have several plants from different sources in full growth. The advantage of starting early seems obvious: now they can (and do) catch much more food than in winter.

Drosera_graniticola_prey.jpg

I am not good at taking pictures of many erect species, at least not such pictures I consider good enough to share them. D. platypoda is different. This species is usually quite easy to make beautiful pictures of.

Drosera_platypoda_TUB043-2_1.jpg

Even prior to the first tuberous species some South African winter growing species appear. This is the most advanced D. cistiflora I currently have:

Drosera%20cistiflora%20Niewoudtville.jpg

Enjoy!

Dieter

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I doubt the Sandy Tate River plant is D. peltata as D. peltata is a temperate plant and does not grow that far north. It is probably the Queensland species that as far as I am aware is not described as it gets lumped into the peltata complex. The habit of that intermediate leaf from rosette to upright also rings a bell. This plant is probably more closely related to the asian "peltatas". If you look at the seed it is probaly spherical with faint ridges. I have never managed to grow this plant as it seems to be a true tropical and doesn't like to grow as a temperate. Would love to give it another go if you manage to get some seed ;)

All you plants are looking good! Mine are all finishing for the season and some have been dormant for over a month.

Cheers

George

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wonderful plants, as usual! Do you grow the D sp 'Sandy Tate River' in tropical lowland conditions?

Greg

Good question! The seeds from which these plants sprouted were treated like the D. indica seeds meaning tropical lowland conditions. To be more precise: they are on the top shelf in my wintergarden (at least for those of help who visited me in the past). They do get very high temperatures on sunny days, currently up to 30 °C at 50 cm height, so probably 35+°C at 1.80 m. However, during the nights the temperatures drop to about 10 °C at the moment. I will have to get the tropical species inside now for the winter, especially once the high pressure system and the sunny days are gone (forecast says saturday).

I will have to decide how to treat them during winter and frankly I have not decided yet. The tropical D. peltata from Hong Kong I grew until about a year ago did not really care much about the conditions. It produced shoots at different times of the year (and different temperatures), kept growing for a few months and went dormant again. A very easy grower and far from being complicated.

Quite likely I will keep the plants from the Sandy Tate River warm (20-30 °C) during winter. If more seeds sprout, i will try different conditions for some of them. But I am also open for suggestions.

Best regards

Dieter

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...