[Hope. Manifested]
These are recently harvested pods from my very first AF cross that I did a few years ago. I’m excited that this day has come. If you notice, the pods aren’t as swollen and each pod has a low seed count, sadly. This was due to the bad weather we had early on this year… but there were some seeds at least. Not many, but there were some. I’m very excited to see that I’ve come this far and I am looking forward to see how far this will go…
[Dark Petals]
It has been a relatively cool year over here. The plants in my Sarracenia pit are a bit thrown off, but I guess stuff happens. I mean… dude, it’s June. And we still get some light rain, and some cold. Global warming in effect, I guess. Strange! Anyway, some plants outdoors are laggin’ and are finally throwing out their floral awesomeness. Other plants have been long done and are in seed mode now…
One of the later plants that threw some interesting petals in the midst of the weather madness was this unknown hybrid thing. It has lecuophylla in it, judging from the pitchers. What really drew me to this one was the dark sheen / blackish-glow of the petals. Rad stuff going on in Sarracenia-ville!
Posted in Blog
Tagged black petals, dark petals, flower, petal, Pitcher Plant, rad, Sarracenia
Sup y’all. An update on Project Pollinate Tarnok. Check it, here’s the first post from a couple months ago. In the photo below, I am just checking under the hood – I’m checking for swelling or… whatever the heck a S. ‘Tarnok’ pod is supposed to do at this time. (I have no clue, it’s my first time doing this with Tarnok.) When I did this cross, I was doing a continuous pollen dump on the stigmas. Honestly, I don’t know if there’s any seed in there or not. This could of been a complete failure, but heck, I tried. If no seed this year, I’ll try again next year.
I wonder…
[S. leucophylla ‘Tarnok’ x flava v. cuprea – I wonder if it took?]
Posted in Blog
Tagged cuprea, flava, flower, leucophylla, Pitcher Plant, Sarracenia, Tarnok, Who knows if this will work
[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.)
Posted in Blog
Tagged Chatom Giant, flower, hybrid, rubra, Sarracenia, Sky Watcher, Variation, Wherryi
Just a quick shot of some Sarracenia flava flowers. Photo from today. It’s nice to be able to get home and be able to see a little bit of sunlight. And Sarracenia. 🙂
Sarracenia flava flower frenzy!
In all places, then, and in all seasons,
Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings,
Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons,
How akin they are to human things.
And with childlike, credulous affection
We behold their tender buds expand;
Emblems of our own great resurrection,
Emblems of the bright and better land.
-From the poem Flowers by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Sarracenia leucophylla “Purple Lips” x flava var. rubricorpora flower buds
Posted in Blog
Tagged flava var. rubricorpora, flower, flower buds, leucophylla "purple lips"
Hello all! I hope everyone is having a good week thus far!
Lots of flowering action beginning – a few flowers, but more buds will be opening soon. It’s going to be a busy soon with a flurry of pollination activity. While we’re on the subject of flowers and such, I wanted to share this one photo I snapped this weekend of Sarracenia catesbaei “Bengal Tiger” in flower. I received this plant as a small division a few years ago, and it’s finally flowering for me!
[Sarracenia catesbaei, “Bengal Tiger” flower, March 2011]
Ah, the gentle and subtle hue of this flower… so elegant and debonair. Don’t let it fool you though; the name “Bengal Tiger” was coined by fellow grower, Brooks Garcia, not for the flower but rather for the intense, vivid, and almost violent looking veined pattern strewn across the pitchers.
I don’t have a recent photo on hand at the moment; but here’s one that I was able to pull up from April, 2009. Here it’s exhibiting it’s flaring hood with the bold veins running all throughout. I’ll be sure to get a photo this year as soon as it produces some nice pitchers.
[Sarracenia catesbaei “Bengal Tiger”]
A brief history about this plant: I received this division from fellow Sarracenia addict, Brooks Garcia. This plant was actually originated from a batch of seedlings from fellow friend and grower, Dominic Diaz, who acquired the batch of seedlings from a UC Davis conservatory sale. The pot was labeled “S. purpurea venosa burkii x flava oranata”, and it is believed that the seeds were donated to the conservatory. There were about 50 seedlings crammed into a small four inch pot, and Dominic disbursed them in several trades. (Ain’t genetics awesome? You never know what you’ll get outta a batch o’ seedlings…) Most of the plants from that pot share the same characteristic catesbaei form, with shades of copper, red, and burgundy. The hood is particularly large due to the purpurea subspecies involved in this cross.
Anyway, after some time, a division of one of those seedlings from way back when found its way to me and this is what you see before you here in these photos. Now that it’s flowering, I hope to create some interesting hybrids that also exhibit a similar beautiful veined pattern with that flaring hood. And perhaps a similar story will unfold as I disburse seeds and seedlings to others in the future as well!
