Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 10:33:40 -0500 (EST) From: Oliver T Massey CFS <massey@hal.fmhi.usf.edu> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg970$foo@default> Subject: Re: Sarracenia questions
> > ... I'd like to grow some Sarracenia Flava and/or Leucophylla...
> > ... Since these two sarracenia can reach heights of three feet or
> > more, I'm guessing this won't work, but others have told me that these
> > plants will stay short when in a confined space. They'd eventually hit
> > the lights is my assumption. (two-foot high terrarium)
eight.
Well, not to be negative, but I believe you will tend to have problems with a
24" terrarium for the tall Sarrs. First, you must subtract from the height
available for the plants the depth of the planting medium; so you will loose
6 inches or more. Second, Sarrs. love lots of light and under low light
conditions tend to become etiolated. If you place your fluorescents 18" above
the growth crown you loose a lot of the useable light. And if lights are too
far away from the growth crown your plants will tend to become tall and leggy
(great for models, bad for Sarrs.) whereupon what would have been a robust 24"
plant becomes a spindley 35". FWIW, one solution I used to use was to have a
double light setup. One set of lights went over the plant area and a second
set of lights was split and put on each side of the planting area. This second
set of lights was only about eight inches or so from the growth crowns.
Finally, I really don't believe that they will "adjust" their growth habit to
the available hea
As for height in nature, I have seen plenty of big all-green flava that were
probably close to 40", but I can't say I recall any leuco's. that were more
than about 30" or so. One thing about Sarrs. in the wild, they tend to look
smaller than they really are because they tend to be surrounded by fairly thick
grasses. Once you get down to the crown you realize how much of their height
is disguised by the height of the surrounding grass.
Tom in Fl
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Jan 02 2001 - 17:31:00 PST