>I noticed that a tiny sundew has started to grow from the flower
>scape of a D. intermedia I have in a terrarium. I have never added
>any plant hormones. My wife the plant molecular biologist says
>the tissue has just taking a strange differentiation pathway. Is
>this at all unusual? I haven't seen anything like it before.
The exact same thing happened to my D. Binata. Tiny mature leaves
grew from one of the withered flowers along the flower stalk. It
was kind of neat. I snipped off the mini-plant and set it in
peat. Since there were no roots on it, some time passed before
it recovered and became a separate plant. On the same plant, I've
recently noticed mature leaves coming from one of the drainage
holes in the bottom of the pot. Seems the plant likes to grow!
On the subject of Nepenthes growth, there was written:
>I have a question for those Nepenthes growers out there. I am using a
>Phototron to grow about 5 Nepenthes. The Phototron realy does improve
>the growth of the plants. The traps and leaves are much larger and
>the leaves are a darker green. But the plants seem to grow very slow.
>Of course, I don't really have a point of reference, as I have never
>grown these plants in another environment.
<stuff deleted>
I don't know what a phototron is. In the deleted portion of the text
some mention was made of lower humidity due to circulating air.
I'm surprised that your plants pitcher well with "relatively low"
humidity, although without a number I don't know what "low" is. I
find that my Nepenthes have growth spurts. In the summer I keep
them outside in hanging baskets under dappled sunlight. Our summers
are fairly hot and humid, but the plants grow at the rate you
described for yours. In the winter, though, I bring them inside, and
put them in clear plastic trashbags under a battery of 4-foot
fluorescent tubes on timers. The distance between the tubes and the top
of the pots is about 1.5 feet. The plants are really crowded in
there, but they grow much faster than in the summer. One of the
N. Alatas has three new textbook-example pitchers on it, developed
over approx. 6 weeks. Same for one of the N. Khasianas. The
other N. Alata has put out a lot of (annoying) top growth, which
must be untangled from the other plants. Under similar
conditions, my N. x Wrigleyana and N. x dominii are growing pitchers
but at a slower rate.
Perry