Peter Paul's indoor greenhouse:
The tray they include is way to shallow for the mature species of CP they
sell with it. I would use it perhaps for seed germinating or for a mass
planting of tropical drosera. The Sarracenia need full sunlight and,
especially for the S. purpurea and S. flava, they must have a winter dormancy
lasting at least three months of cooler weather. I would repot the
Sarracenia into a peat moss and perlite mix and keep them outside.
You can probably find both Sarracenia purpurea subspecies purpurea and
S. flava growing in the wild within a few miles of DC. Also found
in the DC area would be D. filiformis, D. intermedia, and D. rotundifolia.
N. ampullaria:
I have an N. ampullaria 'red' that has enough to make a cutting. So that
I don't destroy pitchers that are newly forming, I think I'll try air-layering
some of my Nepenthes vines soon and have rooted plants to trade next spring.
I got a plant N. x (mixta x mirabilis) from Rob M. last year. I have serious
doubts about the validity of the name. It definitely looks like it has
N. ampullaria in its background. I have enough to make a cutting of this
plant too. The pitchers look like huge N. ampullaria pitchers. The peristome
curls down into the mouth of the pitcher just like ampullaria and the lid
is reflexed at 180 degrees like ampullaria too. Not too colorful though.
I thought it might be N. ampullaria x mirabilis but the pitchers are getting
too big and fat for mirabilis. The leaves have long hairs and a reddish
tint along the margins.
N. hookeriana:
The "cultivated form" of N. hookeriana I believe is not the real thing.
It has no ampullaria traits at all that I can see. It looks very close to
N. rafflesiana. I'd say it is some old Nepenthes hybrid - chelsonii or
wrigleyana or something - probably some rafflesiana hybrid of some
sort, then crossed again with rafflesiana to get our N. hookeriana
"cultivated form".
Earl, are you still there? I heard about the big hurricane that hit Hawaii
tonight. Are you growing any Nepenthes vines outdoors there in Hawaii?
Don Burden