cephalotus : growing habit observed

From: dick c tran (dick_tran@mailcity.com)
Date: Thu Apr 13 2000 - 12:27:35 PDT


Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2000 12:27:35 -0700
From: "dick c tran" <dick_tran@mailcity.com>
To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com
Message-Id: <aabcdefg1144$foo@default>
Subject: cephalotus : growing habit observed


 hi y'all,

This is just an observation that i've noticed on my
3 to 5 year old cephs. For all the years that I have
been growing cephs, I've always removed the older
pitchers and make room for the new. This is only
done when the pitchers smother the growing point
of the plant. Up till now, my plants don't produce
many off-shoots, just keeps growing from the original
tip.

And yes, it is hard removing year-old pitchers
that is still looking spectacular, but sacrifices
do have to be made. (So I thought) Finally, I've decided to leave the plants alone and watch the pitchers pile on top of each other, getting smushed, and deformed as the new pitchers wedge themselves between the older ones. The only thing that I did was to try and shift the pitchers (when I can) to make room.

Then finally, the day came when the plant was soooo compacted that
nothing moved. I was about to purge the plant of ALL its older leaves,
but noticed that there were small plantlets and pitchers shooting (from
the underground rhizome) through the soil surface just outside the
'drip-line' of the most outer pitcher. My conclusion is that, if the
plants have no more room to grow from the central crown, all the energy
has to go somewhere and that is when the plants are most likely to start
'venturing' and producing plants away from the parent.

Currently the plastic pots that I use have a diameter of 5.5 inches, so there is enough room to see that new
plants are developing where they have more room to grow.

Has anyone observed this in their plants, also?

Regards,

Dick

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