Date: Wed, 24 Sep 1997 15:01:19 +0000 From: Matt <drake@erols.com> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg3691$foo@default> Subject: Strange Pinguicula
Dear fellow CP growers worldwide! :)
My apologies to start for posting 3 times today.
I have a Pinguicula that seems a little odd to me. It doesn't
have flowers. None. Instead it has alternating leaves that are only
near the top of the plant, leaving a trail of little fuzzy-looking
leaf nodes (terminology correct?) where previous leaves were connected
to the stem (the leaves turn yellow and fall off as the plant grows
taller, leaving only the uppermost leaves).
When the leaves fall off, I THINK they leave behind a seed or a
few seeds on the stem where they were connected. I am not totally
sure because at one time there were seeds at just about every place
where leaves used to be connected, offering a large harvest at one
time, while now I suspect that every leaf now is leaving behind a seed
or a few seeds in a continous effort to reproduce.
Now all of a suddent the Pinguicula pulls another trick out of
its sleeve. It seems to have gotten ahead of itself. Leaf production
seems to have kept to a constant pace, but now all of a sudden it has
"stacked" what I highly suspect as being seeds on top of the plant,
first of all making the plant a little top heavy, second of all now
the leaves are growing out of the stack of seeds as they continue to
grow upwards through the stack of seeds.
I didn't know that these plants produced seed without flowering,
produced seed different ways (from leaf in quantity, from leaf in
consistency, and by "stacking").
The seeds germinate with ease; the ones that I did not harvest
off the plant fell around the plant and began growing on their own.
With the methods that this particular plant is using to reproduce,
coupled with the high germination rate, I would think that these
plants could have the potential to be abundant in their habitat
(wherever that is) to the point of endangering other plant species in
their habitat.
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