The final installment of this trilogy of vignettes takes to the wonderful garden of Martinez. Drew’s collection is beautiful madness, and his space usage (especially in the Nepenthes houses) is very efficient. As an added bonus, the great Sarracenia artist himself, the legend — Phil Faulisi accompanied us on this visit to Drew’s place too! We had a great day simply immersing ourself in botanical bliss. This was one memorable weekend filled with carnivorous plant wonder. I seriously could use more weekends like this.
Drew and Selina, thank you so much for hosting us. Really appreciate you taking time out of your day to give us a tour of your amazing collection! You both are awesome.
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Carnivorous Garden of Drew Martinez – View in fullscreen
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Pitcher plant powwow.
A plethora of Sarracenia flowers.
In that company of Sarracenia flowers, a couple gems stood out. This S. purpurea ssp. venosa var. burkii f. luteola immediately caught my eye. Not just because it was anthocyanin free, but check the flowers out. It’s missing the umbrella shaped style! (See this as a reference of Sarracenia flower parts.) So weird! All the flowers on it were this way. After I pointed it out, Drew called it “Freakshow.” So cool. I love them freaks! This plant originated from a batch of seed grown plants from Chris Gussman. (Great work, Chris!) I recognized the shape and knew straight away it was from Chris since I have one too. 🙂 Mine hasn’t bloomed yet so not sure if this trait is also expressed in the siblings.
Here’s a shot of one of the flowers from that strange luteola…
…and of the other flower. If you see past the petals, there’s no umbrella! Go home, Sarracenia. You are drunk.
Another flower that caught my eye after the strange luteola flower. This is S. lamentations x leucophylla. Notice anything funny about this one? Check the sepals out! (Again, here’s the Sarracenia flower reference photo.) Typically Sarracenia sepals are separated into 5 distinct sepals. This plant has only one fused / continuous sepal. It was consistent on all of the flowers too!
An ever-so efficient use of space. It’s packed in here!
Phil freaks out over this beautiful N. robcantleyi!
WOW. Just… wow.
