First off, I'm glad to see that I'm getting a lot of interest in these
_Sarracenia_ seedlings. I'd hate to see them go to waste. Don't forget
to include your snail-mail address (i.e. post-office address) with
your requests.
Bill (smith@io.litton.com), what's your snail-mail address? My messages
to you are getting bounced...
On another matter entirely...
I've got some _U.volubilis_ growing in a pot (actually, until it flowers
all I can say is that it is either _U.volubilis_ or _U.helix_). This is a
very primitive Utric. It forms a nice little rosette of leaves. Fearing it
would flower and then die, I reported a few months ago on my success at
getting leaf cuttings to ``root''. This morning I decided to repot it since
it was getting a bit overrun by some nasty moss. I took the opportunity to
take a close look at this plant. It is very weird. Not only does it produce
bladders at the ends of its leaves (what the heck is it trying to catch
in the air?) but I couldn't find any subterrene bladders (although I didn't
look too hard, since I didn't want to anger my only mature plant). And the
real kicker is that there are a bunch of long unbranched stolons several cm
long probing around in the soil. These stolons are leafless, bladderless,
rhizoidless, unbranching. Looking through TAYLOR and LLOYD, I see that
TAYLOR considers these to be robust rhizoids. I find this difficult to
believe, since (A)the species has normal capillary rhizoids, so
if these organs are also rhizoids the species produces two different
types (B)of the several organs present, one is producing a plantlet at
the apex---unlikely behavior for a rhizoid, although not impossible for
the wildly plastic genus.
When I started the repotting, I was planning on trying to grow my new
plantlets as affixed aquatics---that is, in soil but under water. Maybe
if the plant grew like that, the leaf-apex bladders would have a point to
life. These questing stolons have reinforced my suspicions---I wonder if
the plant is looking for a better place to live. The plant is described as
growing in shallow water.
Other strange Lentibularian News, a clone of _G.violacea_ (thanks Mr. Allen!)
is confused and is producing traps from a few scale axils and also from
a flower.
Barry