The Pitcher Plant Project

Happy Mothers Day!

Posted on May 8, 2011 | Leave a comment

Happy Mothers Day! WORD TO THE MOTHERS! It’s a day to think about all the mothers and mother figures in out lives. We should honor our mamas not just this day, but everyday. We wouldn’t be here without them. I am very thankful for my Mom and Lola (that’s grandmother in Filipino) and all they have done and all they sacrificed for our family.

A couple shout outs:

Mom and Lola – THANK YOU so much for all your sacrifice and love. Mom, thanks for pushing really hard. I wouldn’t be here if you didn’t push. (HA!) Lola thank you for being you. You have always been there and have been such a source of strength for all of us. You’ve had quite an influence in my garden obsession. 🙂

I also want to give a very very special shout out to my wife, and the mother of my two wonderful boys, and the awesome Giants fan in my life. THANK YOU so much for all you have done for our family, for all your hard work, all your love and affection, for keeping me updated on what’s going on with the Giants games when I couldn’t be there to watch … and your patience with me and my garden/Sarracenia obsession. That be true love right there. I love you.

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!

OH! And a very happy Mama’s day to the Sarracenia Mama! Sarracenia purpurea ssp. venosa v. burkii “Big Mama”! 🙂

[Sarracenia purpurea ssp.venosa v. burkii “Big Mama”]

This S. purpurea ssp. venosa v. burkii “Big Mama” wishes you all a Happy Mothers Day!!!

Fill ‘er Up

Posted on May 6, 2011 | 1 comment

My new project: Fill ‘er up.
I’ll be starting a few seedlings yet again. I know, I’m a little behind, for this year.
I got two tubs and a few square pots. This is going to be a fun undertaking. For now, here is the blank canvas on which this carnivorous art work will soon begin…

I’ll keep you posted as things fill up and (hopefully) grow.

[One of the seedling tubs, soon to be full of baby Sarracenia]

[The Matrix… empty pots for now, soon to be filled with Sarracenia goodness.]

1 Comment

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Tagged growing from seed, project, Sarracenia, seedling, this is gonna be freekin awesome

A Tale of Two Luteolas

Posted on May 5, 2011 | 3 comments

It was the radest of times, it was the freshest of times…
Of course, this is all possible because of fellow AF Sarracenia aficionado and magical Sarracenia grower, Chris Gussman – aka “Woodnative”. (Chris, THANKS! You made my day yesterday!) For those of you who don’t know, Chris has this awesome super power of growing Sarracenia seedlings into gigantor type status rather quickly. I don’t know where he gets it… but I need me some o’ that!

There was a nice surprise that showed up for me yesterday via FedEx.

[Uh, who … me?]

I don’t know what Chris is talking about on the box, I just kinda stick plants in the durt and they do their own thing. (Chris: As far as the “photographer extraordinaire” thing… I just push a button man. That’s all I do. HA!) 🙂

[Chris has the most awesome giant zip lock bags…]

So, opening it up I find this giant sized zip lock bag, and it’s filled with the goodness of Sarracenia purpurea ssp. venosa v. burkii f. luteola! (An anthocyanin free clone of S. purpurea ssp. venosa v. burkii, or S. rosea as some folks call it.) More information about the plant can be also found here: http://www.carnivorousplants.org/cpn/samples/Tax271Spurpburk.htm

Chris had crossed two of his S. purpurea ssp. venosa v. burkii f. luteola clones, resulting in many offspring. Two of which, are below.

[S. purpurea ssp. venosa v. burkii f. luteola – C. Gussman, May 2011 – FRESH outta the box!]

2 different clones. Both are from the same seed pod, but what a difference indeed! Here’s one seedling:

[S. purpurea ssp. venosa v. burkii f. luteola – C. Gussman, May 2011]

The above photo is what I would expect with this cross, a more typical form/shape of luteola. Now, just for illustrative purposes, below is a photo of one of my other luteola plants, so you get the idea of a general pitcher shape:

[S. purpurea ssp. venosa v. burkii f. luteola – Rob Co’s, April 2010]

However, below is the other seedling that resulted from the cross Chris did — and DUDE, it is just something else! He called it “Odd”… I’ll just stick it with that, for now, until he thinks of a better name for it! 🙂

[S. purpurea ssp. venosa v. burkii f. luteola “Odd Clone”- C. Gussman, May 2011]

At a young age, I really am impressed by this clone. What strikes me about this is the upright and triangular ruffled hood. It’s also not as “tubby” as I would expect. Again, it’s young so features can change and develop as it ages. Here’s a couple more shots of this plant…

[S. purpurea ssp. venosa v. burkii f. luteola “Odd Clone”- C. Gussman, May 2011]

Chris, thank you again so so very much for your kindness and generosity!

3 Comments

Posted in Blog

Tagged anthocyanin free, breeding, Genetics, hybrid, luteola, odd clone, radness, Sarracenia purpurea ssp. venosa v. burkii f. luteola

Variation: Flower Color

Posted on May 1, 2011 | 2 comments

Sarracenia rubra wheryii "Chatom Giant" x "Skywatcher"
[Sarracenia rubra wherryi “Chatom Giant” x “Sky Watcher”, flower variations]

Happy May everyone. May is here, where has this year gone? We’re almost half way through ’11. Nuts. Anyway, Happy May erray-body! I wanted to share and illustrate a little variation again on genetics and breeding Sarracenia. It always makes things so freekin’ interesting. You never know what parent plant or grand parent plant, (or beyond) would influence the current progeny. Fun stuff this is. Lately, I’ve been pointing out a lot of the variation on the pitchers – such as shape, color, size… so on and so forth. However, I noticed that this one particular cross had different colored flowers. The flowers photographed above, are those of a cross that was created by fellow Sarracenia addict, Brooks Garcia. It is S. rubra ssp. wherryi “Chatom Giant” x “Sky watcher”. He sent me some seeds of his cross 3 years ago that I grew out. Above are two different flowers of this same cross.

Genetics, always fun!

(By the way,there’s a third adolescent seedling that has a flower bud that hasn’t opened up yet, but I’ll share that when it does. I can’t really tell the color of that third unopened just yet.)

2 Comments

Posted in Blog

Tagged Chatom Giant, flower, hybrid, rubra, Sarracenia, Sky Watcher, Variation, Wherryi

Sarracenia ‘Royal Ruby’

Posted on April 30, 2011 | 3 comments

So, I think a recent event had a few people talking about some royal thingmabobberish shindig thang… rrrrrrrright? I haven’t been watching the news or anything, so not sure what all the hullabaloo is about. I’ll probably hear about it sooner or later. I’ve just been overhearing bits and pieces of “royal-this” or “royal-that”…

Anyways, since we’re on the topic of “royal-this and thats” – I might as well throw this into the mix. Sarracenia ‘Royal Ruby’! (Formerly the Sarracenia known as Prince, no, I mean — “Big Red”) 😉

Sarracenia 'Royal Ruby'
[Sarracenia ‘Royal Ruby’]

The following info on S. ‘Royal Ruby’ can be found in the International Carnivorous Plant Society Newsletter:
(http://www.carnivorousplants.org/cpn/Species/v38n1p12_22.html#Ruby)
“Sarracenia ‘Royal Ruby’ is a natural S. ×moorei hybrid collected from northern Florida in 1991. Phil Faulisi obtained the plant in 1992. Even before the pitchers are fully developed and open they display a distinct pink flush that deepens as the pitcher matures. Overall the lower portion of the pitchers is coloured a deep olive-green while the upper portions are suffused in lush pink/red raspberry tones. The quality of this colour is best described as luminous or iridescent, and often makes clusters of pitchers appear to glow. Under intense light this raspberry colour can suffuse the upper three-fourths of the pitcher but more commonly it dominates the upper half to upper third of the pitcher. This plant shows a high degree of the S. leucophylla influence in the shape of the hood displaying significant ruffling. Likewise, fenestrations on the hood and upper regions of the pitcher expose the S. leucophylla influence in the cross. The pitchers of S. ‘Royal Ruby’ typically grow 76-86 cm (30-34 inches) in height, but pitchers over 107 cm (42 inches) in height have been observed (PF). The flowers are bi-coloured, the petals being predominantly red with orange/yellow tips. This plant must be reproduced only through vegetative means to ensure that its unique nature is maintained.

The name ‘Royal Ruby’ was chosen by Phil in May 2004 because of the regal beauty of the plant and how the colour is similar to that of Burmese rubies. S. ‘Royal Ruby’ was previously distributed by Phil as S. ×moorei “Big Red”.

http://www.carnivorousplants.org/cpn/Species/v38n1p12_22.html#Ruby

3 Comments

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Tagged Big Red, moorei, Pitcher Plant, Royal Ruby, Sarracenia

Widemouth Hybrid

Posted on April 27, 2011 | Leave a comment

Back in 2009, I did a cross using a Sarracenia flava form, informally called flava “widemouth”, just cuz… it gots a big ol’ mouf! It’s nectar roll is pronounced more than a typical Sarracenia flava. The pollen parent was a Sarracenia leucophylla “red” x minor var. okeefenokeensis

So, flash forward to 2011, this is what one of the seedlings is looking like. Its mouth is somewhat pronounced and it has some of those little light window things (areoles) visible around the tube. It’s only 2 years old, but for this “kid”, I am really hoping that mouth stays pretty big as it grows up.

Sarracenia flava "widemouth" x (leucophylla "red" x minor var. okeefenokeensis)
[Sarracenia flava “widemouth” x (leucophylla “red” x minor var. okeefenokeensis)]

That’s WASSSUP!

Posted on April 24, 2011 | 2 comments

Yo, wasssss*up*! This moorei’s wasssss*up*, that’s foh sho, homies.
Here’s some moorei radness to kick this week off!

Sarracenia moorei - Milton, FL
[Sarracenia moorei – Milton, FL]

Dude, this is straight up — straight up! A couple of years ago, fellow carnie Dean Cook sent me a small division of an interesting moorei. (Dean runs Cook’s Carnivorous Plants – be sure to check his site out, good selection, price, and quality!) When it started to pitcher for me a couple years ago, I noticed the pitchers having this pretty fresh trait – the hood on this moorei points up. Pretty nifty, methinks! This year, now that the division is more mature, it is putting out some nicely colored pitchers full of that upwardly straight up goodness. That’s WASSSUP! 🙂

2 Comments

Posted in Blog

Tagged hybrid, Milton, moorei, Sarracenia, Up

Happy Mothers Day!

Fill ‘er Up

A Tale of Two Luteolas

Variation: Flower Color

Sarracenia ‘Royal Ruby’

Widemouth Hybrid

That’s WASSSUP!

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