CP stuff

Email Mujahideen (Robert.Allen@Eng.Sun.COM)
Sun, 5 Jan 92 13:52:19 PST

I was on vacation last week, so I went up to UC Santa Cruz
to try and spy my old collection. Sadly, I got within one
locked door of getting in. The person in charge of the
greenhouses was on vacation so they locked the door to the
roof :-(. However, I stopped by the arboretum at the base
of campus and tried to find their few CP. I just found one,
a large and bushy Nepenthes alata which had no good pitchers
on it. I think it was underwatered. They seemed to be growing
it in either pumice, or heavy perlite. Lack of humidity or sun
could also be the problem. I'm going to make another attempt
to get to the greenhouses in the next few weeks.

On other fronts, Scott Brown, I, and his father got together
for a pilgrimage to California Carnivores. Sadly the collection
was about half or more dormant, so it wasn't as visually exciting,
but I enjoyed it a lot. The tuberosities were coming up, and
some of them were quite interesting. Peters' D. gigantea was
dormant, it still is off sync, but supposedly its' tuber is about
the size of a walnut. It was nice to meet someone from the list
in person! Scott, I'm sorry you didn't get down to see my
collection, but it should be growing more the next time you get
in town anyhow.

Friday I cleaned out my terrarium of the moss and scunge growing
in the bottom, and it looks much nicer now. When I get paid next
week I'm going to buy some lights and setup a propagating chamber
here at work :-). I think I'll use the Crystal Lite indoor
greenhouse my mom gave me for the growing chamber, and I'll use
a PVC frame to support 2, 2 tube 2' flourescent fixtures overhead.
(Don, do you still have those 2 extra 2' grow bulbs?).

While cleaning the terrarium I noted the following:

- my Nepenthes seed is still germinating, while some seedlings
are looking pretty big. The dead, milled, spaghnum I planted
them in has sprouted so I sat around for half an hour with
little scissors lawn-mowing the moss so the seedlings could
get some light. Do people transplant seedlings, or do you wait
until they're non-seedlings before transplanting? What do you
transplant them to?

- I found 3 unidentified rosetted droseras, which I've put in
the same pot together. They look like rotundifolia, but I have
no idea how I got them. They are small, each only having 4 leaves.

- I found (GASP!) scale on my N. khasiana leaf cutting which Mike
sent me ages ago, which still hasn't struck. I swabbed some head
cleaner (alcohol) on the things, then bagged it up in a baggie and
put it back in my terrarium. So far I don't see any scale on my
other plants. Here's hoping.

- The D. adelae root cuttings Barry sent me a while ago have filled
the small pot with plants. Barry, are these the red or white
flowered variety?

- The U. sandersonii in my D. collinsae pot are growing out of the
bottom drainage holes. However, maybe the drosera realized its'
peril, for it's now sending up some new leaves.

- I have 3 new leaf bud plantlets growing in my D. prolifera pot.
However I've yet to observe the plant-on-flower-stalk which this
species is supposed to show. I'm leaving the stalk on anyhow.

Question of the day: if I take a 4 node meristem cutting off my
Nepenthes boissense, how many nodes do I bury in the rooting medium,
and do I cut half of *all* the leaves off? Is it wise to use
vermiculite for rooting, or should I stick with live moss?

That's all for now,

Robert