Glasshouse Works has N. spectabilis. I don't know if this is correctly
IDed. I bought the plant from them last month. Mine aren't producing
pitchers yet. Photo of the plant is in Kondo's book _CP of the World_.
The pitchers are very thin and mottled brown.
There's a photo of N. rhombicaulis in Kondo's book, and in CPN: March+June
1990, p. 21. Kondo's N. rhombicaulis looks like the N. gymnamphora photo
in CPN (below) from p. 14. CPN shows a pink pitcher, smallish, bulbous base
with flaring toward the top of the pitcher.
There's a photo of N. gymnamphora in CPN, March 1984, on cover and on p. 14.
This species has an oval pitcher. Leaf part is very small in comparison
to the pitcher.
Other than the hairs on N. hirsuta plants, there is not much else to
distinguish this species.
N. thorellii looks a little like N. gracilis in growth habit. Pitchers can
be green or completely red/pink. Pitchers are fatter than N. gracilis.
Also, there's a nice N. macfarlanei photo in CPN Narch/June 1990;
N. carunculata is in CPN, December 1985; N. lowii (Gunong Trusmadi) is in
CPN, June 1984 ("the difference of size between these pitchers and those
from Kinabalu was clearly recognizable. These pitchers were much larger...").
N. sanguinea and another N. macfarlanei are in CPN, September 1983.
Silica sand:
Just get a bag of sand with "Silica Sand" on the label. I like pool filter
sand the best so you can be sure there's nothing in the sand that might be
harmful to the plants (such as a high concentration of salt). The sand
should be pure white in color and not greyish.
Photos showing no sense of size of the subject:
This gripes me too! N. bicalcarata has pitchers only 4 inches tall, but
many photos of this species make the pitchers look big as a basketball!
How about that photo of a D. erythrorhiza "tuber" in Pietropaolo's book -
it looks as big as a beefsteak tomato!
D. hilaris:
I didn't have any trouble germinating the seeds from Allen Lowrie. The
plants may be intolerant of cool soil temperature. I have one seedling
left. I'm keeping it inside a baggie. The others died of what might have
been crown rot.
D. villosa plants are looking spectacular after a month under the metal halide
plant light. 10 cm. in diameter and leaves are getting dark red.
D. graminifolia (seedling) leaves are up to 3 cm.
D. chrysolepis (seedlings) have leaves 1 cm. and is forming a definite stem.
Is D. chrysolepis spelled correctly? This is the way it is in Jan's list
but a lot of people want to spell this as D. chrysolepsis.
D. sp. (Auyan Tepui) are beginning to flower. This is an unspectacular
rosette. Is there a simple key for rosette Drosera to tell the differences
between D. capillaris, D. montana, and D. brevifolia? I don't know what
other species my plants could be than those three.
-- Don Burden New Albany, Indiana, USA donb@coplex.com