Peter has re-arranged his greenhouse, and has an additional
propagating house next to the display greenhouse. The
display greenhouse has most of his collection in it, including
some very rare Nepenthes. On display he has N. bicalcarata,
a couple of forms of N. ampullaria, and some other nice
looking plants. I bought a couple of small plants, and
in the course of so doing had an interesting discussion
with Peter about, yes, N. x Hookeriana.
Peter has a mature plant of this naturally occuring hybrid
there as well as some cuttings of what's supposed to be
a different clone of the same hybrid from U.C. Berkeley.
To make a long story short, the rooted cuttings he has
look just like the plant I got from Barry a couple of years
ago, which was identified as x Hookeriana, but which many
people (including myself and Barry) have had doubts about.
Peter said that he had some doubts himself, but that a
number of people are growing what alledges to be this
hybrid, looking much different from his stock plant. Peter
suggested that people are making this hybrid from seed,
and that's one reason why it may not look like the plants
seen, for example, in Kurata's book. Stupidly, it never
occured to me that people might be making their own
hybrids. Peter then showed me other Nepenthes he had
which showed tremendous environmental variability. In
particular, he showed me N. glabratus which he had,
and a clone from Geoff Wong, the "Palo Alto" form, which
resembles the normal glabratus plant about the way a
bansai pine resembles a full sized plant. So, for those
of you who have the alleged x. hookeriana, you aren't
the only ones. UC Berkeley has it, and through the BCPS
auctions, lots of CA growers probably have it.
Peter also showed me his 1" diameter $140.00 N. rajah
baby plants from in vitro. Peter is having a number
of his clones grown in vitro, but he says it's a pain
when it comes time to de-bottle them. He got the rajah
from Thomas Alt. I also got to see a 4" diameter N.
villosa plant he has. It's beautiful, and looks like
a Nepenthes plant with Ceph. pitchers attached. I'd
love to get this or N. edwardsiana.
That's it for now.
R.