S. ‘Adrian Slack’
It’s been a couple of years now that my S. ‘Adrian Slack’ has been bloom-less. After a 2 year silence, there is a bloom once again. FINALLY.
As I was working in the greenhouse yesterday, I came across something pretty unique. For a while I’ve been eagerly awaiting S. “Smurf” to bloom so that I could see how those weird genetics would play out with some of the other plants. I know that some think it’s a plant for the compost heap. After all, it is a freak. I, on the other hand, kind of like this plant’s odd character. (See photos here for example.)
At first glance, I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. However, I noticed something different as I began to harvest the pollen. Not only is this plant an oddball in foliage – it’s a bit of an anomaly when it comes to the flowers too. Smurf’s flower has six petals. It also has six stigmas. Furthermore, the style is funk-tified with grooves and slight frills on the edges. Sarracenia flowers typically only have five petals. (See flower chart for parts reference, here.) Time will tell if the flower and pollen prove fertile.
I do not know if this is petal count consistent with the other Smurfs that are out there, or if I just have a Smurf that had some sort of identity crisis and decided to do it’s own thing this year. Of course, there is a possibility that this is a one off occurrence and that it could grow a “normal” flower next year. My other S. “Smurf” divisions have no bloom this year, but it would be very interesting to compare if I had more blooms next year. If anyone else has a S. “Smurf” in bloom, please let me know your findings; would love to hear from you!
Sarracenia “Smurf” – 18 March 2013
Upon my initial observation, I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. When I went to harvest pollen, that’s when I noticed the flower was a bit different.
Sarracenia “Smurf” flower – 18 March 2013
Sarracenia “Smurf” flower – 18 March 2013
This plant truly has a unique style. Yeah, double entendre intended.
I can’t help but post and share more Sarracenia flower goodness to kick this weekend off – enjoy!
Sarracenia courtii x ‘Adrian Slack’ – Select Clone
Sarracenia leucophylla – Anthocyanin Free
Sarracenia rubra wherryi “Chatom Giant”
Sarracenia ‘Abandoned Hope’
Sarracenia ‘Snorkle’
Sarracenia ‘Alucard’ “Prince of Darkness”
Sarracenia ‘Alucard’ “Prince of Darkness”
Sarracenia ‘Alucard’ “Prince of Darkness”
Sarracenia leucophylla ‘Tarnok’
Posted in Blog
Tagged Abandoned Hope, Adrian Slack, Alucard, anthocyanin free, Chatom Giant, Courtii, flower, Flower Power!, leucophylla, Prince of Darkness, rad, rubra, Sarracenia, Snorkle, Tarnok
Wassup y’all! With all of the flowers poppin’ off in the greenhouse, there’s quite a bit of flower radness going on. I wanted to share a couple of these that just bloomed recently. This is the first year these babies have flowered – and both of the flowers below are sibling plants and come from the same pod. The variation is quite interesting, as well as the pretty unique variegation in the latter flower. This is what makes breeding so interesting – you never really know what you’ll get.
The cross I did back in 2008 was Sarracenia “Red Blush” x (‘Leah Wilkerson’ x oreophila). The pollen parent was a plant that fellow Sarraceniaphile Brooks Garcia created. One of the siblings of these plants can be found in a previous post here.
Check out the radness!
Yellow flower – light red variegation on petals.
Sarracenia “Red Blush” x (‘Leah Wilkerson’ x oreophila) – Yellow Flower
Sarracenia “Red Blush” x (‘Leah Wilkerson’ x oreophila) – Yellow Flower
Red flower – yellow variegation
Sarracenia “Red Blush” x (‘Leah Wilkerson’ x oreophila) – Red verigated flower
Sarracenia “Red Blush” x (‘Leah Wilkerson’ x oreophila) – Red verigated flower
Posted in Blog
Tagged flower, Leah Wilkerson, oreophila, Red Blush, Sarracenia, Variation, variegation
I’m back in the SF Bay! Seattle was amazing, as always! It was a wonderful week of rejuvenation and relaxation – not to mention seeing some awesome carnivores at Karen Oudean’s and Jerry Addington’s place. I’ll share the photos in a soon-to-come future post.
So anyway, a week later I came home to the buds swelling and opening up. It’s always nice to see these things explode into colors, and it made for a nice welcome home indeed. I started to collect pollen and do a few hybridizations. The madness begins: vacation over and now time to get to (hybridizing) work!
A few buds about to explode.
Sarracenia moorei flower
Sarracenia courtii x ‘Adrian Slack’ – Select Clone
Sarracenia “Blood Moon” x luteola – crossed this before I left for vacation. I see the flower is now nodding upwards so hopeful that the cross took.
In the never ending cleaning and re-potting that I am still doing – another task has been added to the madness. Flower maintenance. There’s quite a few plants that I am not going to use in hybridizing this year. I have to be selective. (That’s what I tell myself every year.) That said, I may let the unused plant bloom for a bit, enjoy the flowers … then lop em off.
Below were some defunct flowers that got bent out of shape from my recent re-potting efforts. The stress and movement of re-potting caused the flowers to bend/fall over in all these weird directions. I was not planning on using this particular S. flava clone in hybridization this year, so I just cut the flower stalks off to (hopefully) help the plant redirect energy to foliar growth.
They can kinda still make for a nice shot, at least. Such pretty compost material…
Sarracenia flava flowers
Sarracenia alata in bloom – loving the elegant curves of this hawt beauty…
Hope y’all are having a good weekend so far!
Sarracenia alata bloom
