The collection in flower, 2017

Finally – the collection is in flower and the first pitchers are opening!

This is the Sarracenia flava var. atropurpurea / all red flava pond - most of these are FRT 1-1.

The flava var. flava/maxima/rugellii/cuprea/ornata pond (so striped/veined/green and cut throat flava). The pot at right is a mini-bog I set up just for my VFTs. Behind it is the red tube (flava var. rubricorpora) pond.

And finally, the leucophylla pond.

  

There’s only a few leucophylla flowers open so far – cv. Tarnok and a random clone from my friend Owen. The majority of the other clones are still a week or so off flowering yet.

 

This is a flava var. cuprea I got from Gotcha! Plants back in 2009. Its been a very solid performer.

 

Another coppertop flava, this is ‘F1’ (as in flava clone # 1) from Fly Free Zone (David & Felicity Martin). Over 30 years old and still one of the better coppertops around.

Here’s the only Sarracenia with pitchers fully opened – flava var. maxima ‘Honeysuckle Road, Harleyville, NC’. Greg Bourke imported a load of seed from this locality in the early 2000s, germinated some and gave the rest to other growers, one of whom was Ron Abernethy, who then gave this and a few other plants to me. Var. maxima are a surprising rarity here in OZ; most I’ve grown turned out to be a hybrid with Sarracenia alata, or produced a copper lid if grown in full sun.

At left is another Harleyville, NC, plant, this time a var. flava. I brought this plant at the Sydney meeting of the International Carnivorous Plant Society in 2007; it sometimes produces very pronounced teeth on the umbrella of the flower. At right is another var. flava, this time fro Gotcha! Plants in Queensland.

A few more assorted flava flowers, noting also that the Blue Mountains Drosera binata growing in the same pots are also out of dormancy.

Here’s a couple of special things from the all red flava pond. At left is a cross between FRT 1-1 and a clone of flava var. atropurpurea I used to grow from Phil Reytter of Lithgow. Phil’s plant was not very vigorous, so it went from the collection last year. But its cross with FRT 1-1 is very vigorous. At right is a Sarracenia x moorei backcross I like to call ‘David Martin’ after its breeder. It produces spectacular red tubed pitchers with very heavily veined lids. Its been a bit temperamental in the collection here, but I’m hoping that it will come good for me this year.

 

And to close, the flowers of FRT 1-1, a leucophylla-introgressed all red flava grown by David from imported seed in the 1970s.

‘Till next time!

Inching closer to the first 2017 Sarracenia flowers…

The first Sarra flower of the year is getting close – nearly all the plants have produced scapes that have started to nod forwards. Note the pond at upper middle is less developed than the rest of the ponds; these are the Sarracenia leucophylla.

The first to open is going to be a coin-toss between S. flava var. ornata ‘Biddlecombe heavy vein’ and a nice clone of S. flava var. maxima from Honeysuckle Road, Harleyville.

The Sarracenia flava var. atropurpurea ‘FRT 1-1’ contingent may have been the first to appear, but they have been well and truly overtaken.

As mentioned above, the Sarracenia leucophylla are usually always a little bit later to flower than the S. flava. These are the flower buds of cv. “Tarnok”. Its taken since 2009 when I first got them from Gotcha! Plants to get them to a decent population. I’m thinking it may be an idea to hybridize some of them with any overlapping S. flava varieties to see what I get.

Elsewhere in the collection, the sundews are beginning to emerge from dormancy. These new leaves of D. binata only opened in the last few days. They are always a spectacular sight at this stage of their development…

As are Drosera filiformis. These are the typical variety.

 

To close, here are some succulents – a flowering Pleiospilos nelii stone plant (which remarkably takes our winters with very little protection) and an unnamed Lithops.