The Pitcher Plant Project

Alien!

Posted on October 6, 2010 | Leave a comment

Today a co-worker of mine was telling me about some news story she heard about with a UFO sighting in Mongolia… or somfin’ like that… (I guess the story was like… from today, and news clips could be found on places like this…)

But anyway, the whole UFO/alien thing reminded me of one of the plants growin’ out here that I think showed up after UFO’s invaded my grow area or something. One of the alien dudes were left behind. So I potted it up… Some lime green weird looking Sarracenia-iod-ish type plant from the planet Triffid. Or something…

Actually, it’s just a Sarracenia flava x psittacina. Heh heh. But still, looks pretty durn funny to me – like it just walked out of a space ship or something. 🙂

flavaxpsit1 [Sarracenia flava x psittacina – Take me to your leader!]

flavaxpsit2 [Sarracenia flava x psittacina]

A couple of years…

Posted on October 4, 2010 | 3 comments

One of the hybrids I did a couple of years ago caught my eye as I was doing some clean up in the yard today. Check out what a couple of years did…

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S. (purp het x rubra jonesii) x (leuco x rubra gulf) AF [Winter, 2008 – Sarracenia (purpurea ssp. purpurea x rubra ssp. jonesii) x (leucophylla x rubra ssp. gulfensis) – Anthocyanin Free Clone]

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S. (purp het x rubra jonesii) x (leuco x rubra gulf) AF
[Fall, 2010 – Sarracenia (purpurea ssp. purpurea x rubra ssp. jonesii) x (leucophylla x rubra ssp. gulfensis) – Anthocyanin Free Clone]

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Tagged anthocyanin free, Carnivorous Plant, Garden, growing from seed, hybridization, North American Pitcher Plant, Sarracenia, Sarracenia Hybrid, seedlings, The Pitcher Plant Project

Hairy Situation

Posted on October 3, 2010 | 2 comments

One aspect of carnivores that really fascinates me are all the mechanisms used for luring and trapping a meal. Just as an example – these downward pointing hairs on the hood of this Sarracenia purpurea ssp. venosa v. burkii f. luteola make for a slippery foothold and make for an even harder time for the meal to escape. Food falls into the pit and a hairy situation serves as a obstacle for said meal. Just one of the things that make these plants so redonculously flippin’ awesome.

hair [Sarracenia purpurea ssp. venosa var. burkii f. luteola – leaf detail]

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Tagged anthocyanin free, Carnivorous Plant, luteola, North American Pitcher Plant, Sarracenia, Sarracenia purpurea, The Pitcher Plant Project

Sarracenia purpurea ssp. venosa var. burkii f. luteola

Posted on September 29, 2010 | 2 comments

Sarracenia purpurea ssp. venosa var. burkii f. luteola. Yeah. Type that 10 times fast without getting carpal tunnel syndrome! (S. purpurea ssp venosa var. burkii = S. rosea. Ah yes, the name game. A comprehensive run down of this is can be found in the FAQ’s of Barry Rice’s site.)

It’s an awesome plant and for more information, read about the history of this plant on the International Carnivorous Plant Society page about this friggin’ awesome plant. (Thanks Mr. Miller and Mr. Hanrahan!)

About a year or so ago, I received a few seeds from fellow grower friend, Chris Gussman. The seedlings are now showing some luteola-ness! Chris (Chris, correct me if I am wrong), crossed 2 of his S. rosea f. luteola plants and now the seeds are coming up over here pretty nice. I have hopes to propagate and distribute these plants (among others) in the future to ensure this plants survival. Thanks again Chris!

[Sarracenia purpurea ssp. venosa var. burkii f. luteola, 9.18.10]

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Tagged Addiction, Carnivorous Plant, Garden, growing from seed, luteola, North American Pitcher Plant, Pitcher Plant, Sarracenia, Sarracenia purpurea, Sarracenia purpurea ssp. venosa v. burkii, The Pitcher Plant Project

I'm stuffed…

Posted on September 28, 2010 | Leave a comment

Dude, I’m stuffed… I just had this incredible dinner just now – a regular “mixtwo” burrito from Taqueria Guadalajara. (yeah, that’s a yelp link…) I don’t like the sour cream and other “fluff” to get in the way of the flavors of the meat. The two choices of protein in this particular burrito was carne asada (steak) and carnitas (pork). The flavors play well off each other and enhance each other. And these burritos were like as big as my forearm, and i figured I would only eat half and work out tonight — BUT — the flavor was so awesome that I just ate the whole thing. YES. Anyway… now that I got that out of the way, I feel friggin’ stuffed. Like dude… food comatose is setting in but I gotta get this blog post outta the way before I fall asleep on my keyboard. 😉

Just hope I don’t end up like the following photo of a pitcher plant filled with bugs. This pitcher is completely stuffed. Look closely, you can see the exoskeltons of the meals in there. Pitcher plants are great at trapping prey; when they get too full, the older pitchers will kinda burn out and dark burn marks will appear, or sometimes the pitcher will just break down like below. Sometimes, the traps are so good at catching prey they get so loaded and wasted with bugs that the pitcher topple over. Yummy. Ok, pass the Pepto Bismol please…

Indigestion

Seasons [Seedling] Shift

Posted on September 27, 2010 | Leave a comment

It is a new season, and it’s becoming obvious in the garden, as well as life. I couldn’t help but thing about change as I was driving home from the office on this beautiful evening. I was appreciating some simple things about this change into fall: taking in the colors of the fall sky at dusk, rollin’ home down highway 1 with the windows down, breathing that fall air, the feel of the wind on my bald scalp… oh and pumpkin spice lattes now available! YEAH! (well, nix the pumpkin spice. I’m happy with just coffee.) 🙂

Cycles. Seasons. Change. Growth.

Beautiful.

Shifts are necessary in growing Sarracenia as well. When one grows Sarracenia from seed like me — things can and will get crowded *very* fast. Sure, seedlings will grow in the pot – for a while – but the true potential of the seedling won’t be visable until some changes happens and it’s given a little bit of room to grow.

The following photos are of a cross that I did last year of Sarracenia courtii, anthocyanin free clone x “Green Monster” (Photos here link to the actual parent plants.) This is S. courtii, anthocyanin free x excellens, anthocyanin free. Anthocyanin free plants lack pigmentation and are all green. All awesome. More examples from an earlier green post.

[Sarracenia courtii, anthocyanin free x “Green Monster” – cross by Robert Co – It’s crowded! Sho ’nuff!]

In the photo above, the seedlings are growing very fast, however it’s time to sort this out. Time to sort and shift em into a place where they can grow.

Separating Sarracenia courtii x "Green Monster" [Removed from the pot. Time to break em apart.]

Separating Sarracenia courtii x "Green Monster" [Sorting.]

The sorting process is fascinating. You don’t really realize how many seedlings are in there until you break it all apart. The strongest ones are evident, and the rest — well other growers will compost them, but I’d like to give this particular cross one year to see how the plants fare and adjust just due to the rarity of the parentage. I’m hoping for some surprises as some seedlings may look smaller and not as strong as their siblings at this time, but the next year after a little TLC, some could have a spurt and become the winners of the group. It has happened to me with a few earlier crosses.

Separating Sarracenia courtii x "Green Monster" [Strongest seedling out of this batch. Good size and shape, and root system formed.]

Separating Sarracenia courtii x "Green Monster" [Fresh transplants… time for growth. In the coming years, their characters will be revealed.]

Moonlight Sarracenia

Posted on September 24, 2010 | 3 comments

It’s 1:30 Am – do you know where your Sarracenia are? 1:30 in the morning. Yeah… I was taking photos of Sarracenias in the autumn moonlight at one-friggin-thirty ay-em.

I was also inspired to take these photos after remembering an article in the the March 2010 International Carnivorous Plant Society Newsletter about plants and moonlight. In this article, Peter D’Amato of California Carnivores writes:

“One thing we must remember. Moonlight is sunlight, reflected by our lunar companion. Although night time varies on our earthy according to latitude and seasons, plants live in moonlight as much as the direct rays of the sun. That some carnivorous plants may take advantage of the moon’s silvery glow is not out of the realm of possibilities.”

In line with yesterdays moonlight-y equinox-y autumnal post, here are some photos of Sarracenia leucophylla ‘Hurricane Creek White’ in the moonlight. This particular S. leucophylla photographed was a division from my fellow Sarracenia grower brodude, Mike Wang. This division originates from one of the original seed grown plants collected by Barry Meyers Rice before the S. leucophylla ‘Hurricane Creek White’ site was destroyed.

Sarracenia at night
[Setup: Camera on tripod set up for 30 second exposure. The way it works – if the shutter is open longer , the more light is let in… the more light, the brighter the image. The moon was just spectacular last night, and gave the leucophyllas an other worldly glow.]