Re: Drosera seeds

Barry Meyers-Rice (barry@as.arizona.edu)
Fri, 26 Feb 93 08:21:38 MST

RobA: I have some awakening hibernacs of _D. filiformis filiformis_
X _filiformis tracyi_, which strictly speaking is _D_ X californica.
They are not clones of the cultivar plant made by Joe Mazrimas he called
_D._ `California Sunset' but if you want any I could send you at least
some leaf cuttings if not a hibernac.

>Barry,
>I am very pleased to read your _U.inflata_ will flower!

:) Me too!

>In _U.vulgaris_ the stigma is sensitive to touch. If you irritate it
>with a needle on the fertile (inner) surface the two halves close
>(quite rapidly, but of course not VFT like). Would you please try this
>with your _U.inflata_? TNX for communication of results in advance!

Jan---I wish I had known about this earlier, I would have tried it on my
_U.gibba_ flowers. Also I have been monitoring some lakes in northern
Arizona where _U.macrorhiza_ grows, which as you know is very closely
related to _U.vulgaris_. I will see about hazarding the false lake bottoms
there this summer to experiment on them as well. I hope the
_U.inflata_ flowers develop well, and are not abnormal.

>D. madagascariensis have finished flowering. They produce spindle-shaped
>seeds. Flower stalk much smoother and longer than D. collinsiae. Flowers
>were dark lavender. No caulescent growth yet.

Don, you sent me a plantlet of _D.madagascariensis_ some time ago and
I am a little suspicious. It sure looks like my clones of _D.collinsiae_
but my plantlet is still a juvenile...

>>Let me guess...is this Utric a stringy mat-forming plant without any bushy

>Could be (I can't remember exactly - I'll check tonight)... The flowers are
>yellow with some reddish flecks on the corolla, with the typical snapdragon

Hmm. This doesn't help much. It only tells me the plant is in the
_Utricularia_ section called _Utricularia_ which has about 34 species.
Since your plant was flowering freely I thought it might be _U.gibba_,
but it actually sounds like your locally found (introduced?) species
that is mat-forming is possibly this species.

I'd sure like to get my hands on _U.australis_---by all accounts this
plant is infinitely easier to grow than most aquatics. Do you ever
get seed? (nudge nudge prod prod).

I'm afraid you don't have _U.fibrosa_ in your collection---there's
no such beast! Of plants labelled this in the past,some have been reID'd
as being _U.gibba_ and the rest were given the name _U.striata_, which
had publication precedence anyway. _U.striata_ is of limited distribution
in N.America only (I think) so it is a little unlikely you've gotten your
hands on specimens down there on the Earth's underside.

BAMR