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Dracula young traps?


gardenofeden

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Short-toothed Venus Flytraps often have thinner, longer teeth (marginal spines) when they are young, and develop the "dentate" characteristics as they mature.

Regarding Dracula, the coloration that the plant is sought for, made famous by a few very nice photos, can be as capricious as it is for so many other Venus Flytraps. I have grown Dracula and UK Sawtooth II of approximately the same level of development and maturity, side by side in identical (and controlled) lighting and conditions, and the UK Sawtooth II ended up looking more like Dracula (the ideal version in the photos) than Dracula itself. :smile:

Edited and added weeks later-- My comments in this post may be inappropriate, as I was possibly (perhaps likely) growing a Venus Flytrap that was not a genetically identical clone of the original plant, but another plant with some visibly different characteristics that was distributed under the same name.

Edited by FlytrapRanch
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I think there are a lot of dubious Dracula's doing the rounds these days. With any venus fly trap the characteristics can vary due to growing conditions but generally Dracula's character will show in any plant of the clone over about an inch in size. I have 6 pots full of mature plants in my collection (all from the original Dracula plant) and all bar a few of the small new divisions have the deep colour and characteristic traps. I'm in a hurry this morning but if I get time later I'll snap a pic and add it here.

Trev

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My experience is the same as Steve's with regards to younger plants developing more "dentate" characteristics as they age. Given some time to mature, I'm sure you will see the characteristic teeth.

I grow many, many Dracula now, since establishing it in tissue culture a couple of years ago, and they rarely look like they do in the infamous photos circulating on the web with the low-lying growth and jagged teeth. In my experience, Dracula gets tall and lanky during the summer months and doesn't put on much coloration. Later in the summer/fall (about now), it develops better coloration and the low-lying leaves that it became famous for from this photo:

http://www.vftshop.com/images/bigPics/draculam.jpg

In my personal opinion, Dracula is an OK plant, but not one of the better short-toothed, well-colored varieties. Like Steve, I think UK Sawtooth II is superior, as well as Jaws (the original clone from Leo Song, Jr.).

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I find plants out of tissue culture take 2 or 3 years to recover and grow normally, all my plants are from natural divisions and have never been tissue cultures. I also grow UK sawtooth and Jaws but the Dracula's always put on the better show me.

drac13-1.jpg

drac13-2.jpg

drac13-3.jpg

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I dont have dracula myself, its just not unique enough for me. One thing I see from the pictures is it has a very curved midrib between the traps. I dont see that feature on yours Stephen, did you get it from a reliable source?

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I dont have dracula myself, its just not unique enough for me. One thing I see from the pictures is it has a very curved midrib between the traps. I dont see that feature on yours Stephen, did you get it from a reliable source?

I got it from highernewhamcarnivores, I think Gary said he imported them from USA and they're from tissue culture. From Mart Miller, is that you mmlr38?

Edited by gardenofeden
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I find plants out of tissue culture take 2 or 3 years to recover and grow normally

We do the majority of our propagation through tissue culture. In my experience, plants out of TC usually resume normal growth within the first growing season.

I got it from highernewhamcarnivores, I think Gary said he imported them from USA and they're from tissue culture. From Mart Miller, is that you mmlr38?

Yes, that's me (Matt Miller). I sourced my original Dracula from a very reliable grower in the EU with whom I've had many successful exchanges. I also sourced another plant from a different grower. Both plants look the same. So unless there was some labeling error somewhere along the way, that is the real deal. The teeth on the one trap do look a little long, but the plant is still small, so that's not extremely unusual (as Steve already mentioned).

Trev, it's surprising to me that those photos you posted were from today. I snapped a few photos of my mature Dracula plant for comparison. It was never in tissue culture, but it looks very different. The trap shape and teeth are the same, but the growth habit is tall and upright. Perhaps the weather or growing conditions in Ireland are already leading to the low growth this time of year? Nearly all of the traps on my mother plant look like the tallest ones on your traps. See below:

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And a few plants out of tissue culture in the last year or so for comparison:

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The small plant in the last photo has quite long cilia relative to the trap size, similar to the plant in your photo, gardenofeden...

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Well Gary sent me some pics of similar sized plants which look very different, and has offered to replace, so perhaps there was just a mix-up?

That could very well be. Mistakes happen from time to time. But I can't say for sure that the plant you have now is not a Dracula. It's too small to say and small plants can look quite different than mature plants, especially ones recently out of tissue culture. Giving it a year or so to grow out will make it easier to tell if it's a Dracula or if it had been mislabeled.

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I'm sorry Matt, to me that is not Dracula. Somewhere back down the line someone must have mixed plants up. The genuine Dracula is mostly rosetted with some upright traps all year round, the traps are arched, the teeth are dentate but with some small side dentations on larger traps, the trap colour develops to a deep red including the teeth and the outside of the traps has a red band.

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My greenhouse temperature ranges from extreme winter low of minimum -7*C to summer maximum of 44*C, usual range is more like 0*C to 40*C, average summer day temp is 20 to 30*C. Full sun. Peat and perlite media.

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Hello

I have also Dracula and i'm uncertained. I get my first Dracula in the year 2009. This plant Dracula 1 grow at the Moment mainly upright, with traps Looks like dentate, some are arced and some have a lightly red band outside.

I have spread them as Dracula to many growers, because i thought its Dracula. Years later i get another Dracula from a Italien grower in a swap.

This plant is still small.

I compare them today and i'm afraid to see differents.

The frist Picture is from Dracula 1 and the other is Dracula 2 from the Italien grower.

Whats your opinion Trev?

gallery_4785_223_265139.jpg

gallery_4785_223_171626.jpg

Did some of us are crappy? If it so, did we can to retrace wich guy was it?

Bye Thomas

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I think I might know what's happened here; there's a rare clone called "G14 X Dentate" which was the only other plant I kept from the original seedlings that Dracula was selected from. On my photo links page and Bobz's CP photo finder site, Dracula is listed along with the parent plants in brackets: Dracula (G14 X Dentate), someone may have misinterpreted this as meaning they are the same clone and relabelled their plant as Dracula.

"G14 X Dentate"

g14xdentate09.jpg

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I think I might know what's happened here; there's a rare clone called "G14 X Dentate" which was the only other plant I kept from the original seedlings that Dracula was selected from. On my photo links page and Bobz's CP photo finder site, Dracula is listed along with the parent plants in brackets: Dracula (G14 X Dentate), someone may have misinterpreted this as meaning they are the same clone and relabelled their plant as Dracula.

I modified the "Dracula" listing in the CP Photo Finder to make Trev's point clear and added a link to this thread.

Part of my purpose in creating the CP Photo Finder was to allow people to compare photos to help verify whether their plants looked correct. There are numerous clones being grown and distributed that are not identified correctly. This results in a big mess.

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