Giant D. burmannii

From: Ivan Snyder (bioexp@juno.com)
Date: Thu Nov 02 2000 - 11:11:20 PST


Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 11:11:20 -0800
From: Ivan Snyder <bioexp@juno.com>
To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com
Message-Id: <aabcdefg3197$foo@default>
Subject: Giant D. burmannii

Hey again sundew fans,

Thought you might like to know just how big the sundew Drosera burmannii
can get. I grow just a common form of this species which I originally
collected myself in Beerwah, Queensland Australia. This plant is very
easy to grow from seed and I have seen it in many peoples collections,
but it is usually small. In nature I saw some plants with rosettes up to
about 5 centimeters in diameter. I have discovered that the key to
getting this plant to the large size is to feed them lots of large
insects. Seeing is believing, so look on my friend Ed Read's web pages
and click on "picture of the month". The burmannii photo is just below
the D. uniflora shots. < http://www.geocities.com/tissueculture/ > You
might like to see Ed's tissue cultured D. falconeri in flower also.
Anyway, I think D. burmannii is a great pet, and the perfect killing
machine with its fast moving tentacles. At this large size it easily
captures house flies. The plant pictured is 5 cm in diameter in a 2.5
inch pot. Since photographing it has grown to 5.5 cm and is now
flowering. It is larger now than I have ever seen. Has anyone else ever
seen this species so large?

Ivan Snyder
Hermosa Beach
California



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