D. uniflora Flowering

From: Ivan Snyder (bioexp@juno.com)
Date: Mon Sep 25 2000 - 10:20:03 PDT


Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2000 10:20:03 -0700
From: Ivan Snyder <bioexp@juno.com>
To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com
Message-Id: <aabcdefg2863$foo@default>
Subject: D. uniflora Flowering

Hi CPers,

I wrote last June about my Drosera uniflora plants from Chile when they
were growing well. Here is an update. My friend Robert Gibson from
Australia was here to go to the CP World Conference and was able to get
some very good photos of my plants. Some say my plants bear a superficial
resemblance to D. burmanii with their rosette of triangular leaves. My
taxonomy studying friends tell me the species is probably most closely
related to D. stenopetala in New Zealand, and that the two species were
separated as the continental land masses split apart. I reckon that was
quite awhile ago, any guesses? Sadly, the plants did not flower then but
only grew for awhile and then went dormant. I once again bagged the pot
and put it in the refrigerator on July 3. After two months I took it out
and placed the pot under my flourescent light setup on Sept 3. After
about a week the plants began to grow again. I just noticed last Friday
September 22, that one of the three plants is forming a flower. This
plant is tiny, only 17 mm in diameter now.

As I said before in CP Digest, this plant is difficult to grow and not at
all showy, so I feel it should not be of interest to the hobbyist grower
but only the serious researcher. I had much response to that from people
which indicated the high value of this species. I suppose the plant is of
interest simply for its obscurity and extreme rarity in cultivation.

If all goes well, I will have a friend photograph the flower. And if
fortunate, I will give seed to a friend who does tissue culture. I feel
that invitro propagation is the only way to make this species more widely
available. Can anyone having experience tell me anything about sowing,
stratification duration and germination? I will write again on this to
let you all know how it goes. Wish me luck.

Ivan Snyder
Hermosa Beach
California



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Jan 02 2001 - 17:35:13 PST