John: I think most are familiar with the green form from an article by
Studnicka in CPN (17:1:p13). Here he mentions that there is a slight
difference in style-bifurcation between the two plants (which were
identified in cultivation). As far as I know, no field studies have
been made to see if these two qualities (petal colour, style bifurcation)
are correlated, nor whether the degree of style-bifurcation is bimodal
or varies continuously in the population.
I grow a lot of Sarracenia, maybe 30--40 pots of mature plants and twice
that again of seedling and juvenile plants. Anybody else out there grow
a lot of this genus? I'm want to compare notes.
As I mentioned to Michael yesterday (we actually chatted face to face
without intervening electronics) I had a near catastrophe in the Green
house, resulting in the near-loss of my _S.minor_ `Oke giant'. I've had
this happen enough I thought I should note the problem. I grow all my
_Sarracenia_ in pure dead milled _Sphagnum_, sitting in trays of water.
I use plastic pots, which by themselves are only slightly buoyant. In
contrast, dead _Sphagnum_ is very buoyant, especially when completely dry.
Over time, the _Sphagnum_ apparently has a tendency to separate from the
pot-bottom and float. This produces an air gap between the bottom of the
pot and the bottom of the _Sphagnum_. Near the end of the week, there may
still be 4--5 cm of water in the trays, but the _Sphagnum_ is no longer
in contact with it and the plant can dry out. If the plant is rapidly
growing, its water needs are very high and the plant can easily fatally
dehydrate. This is an insidious problem because nothing seems wrong until
the plant starts to wilt or brown, and then it could be too late. The
cure? Carefully monitoring the soil in the pots is the only way, if you
want to use _Sphagnum_ and tray watering.
I caught my _S.minor_ `Oke' and saved it---the next day all the young
pitchers were back to normal.
B