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  • #101
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A very sinister upper pitcher. This five-year old plant is finally producing them this year!
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Quite a nice lower pitcher
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Love the lighting. Played with the pitcher for a while to get it juuuuust right
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All together now!
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2nd inflorescence.
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The nectaries on this plant are INSANE and EVERYWHERE!!
 
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  • #102
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Phrag. Sorcerer's Apprentice (thanks Judy!). I received this plant last year just after blooming, and have eagerly waited a whole year to see the flower in person. Spec-freaking-tacular!!
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  • #103
Nice phrag, Kevin! Love your bical. OoC, how stiff are the fangs?
 
  • #104
Nice phrag, Kevin! Love your bical. OoC, how stiff are the fangs?
Thanks, and glad you liked 'em! Hopefully, the plants will get bigger and better each year and make the photos even more neat!

Now for bical fangs, they are actually surprisingly stiff. They will probably break before they could pierce the skin, but I'd compare the stiffness to something like the prongs of a hairbrush. The lip of the pitchers is amazingly slick too, even more so than most of the other Neps I have here.
 
  • #105
That Bicalcarata looks excellent!
 
  • #106
Since AT&T has decided to upgrade its entire cell network, the obsolence of my trusty, indestructible Nokia has forced me into getting a smartphone. Despite my desire to be the oldest person never to have one. So, in my attempt to learn how it works, I did my first photo shoot of the greenhouse!

These first couple are for Paul because I wanted to showcase how, with enough humidity, the seeds of Myrmecodias germinate on the branches of the mother plant. Pretty nifty!


This one of getting MASSIVE!


Dischidia major, also becoming quite a thicket.

NOID Hydnophytum, but either H. simplex or formicarum

Another SG M. tuberosa, which has a pretty sweet double trunk

Prolly 'bout time to repot the upcoming generation. I think this is a 2-year-old.

A definite H. simplex

Now for one of the most interesting plants in the collection. I have here our mature Aristolochia arborea, the only tree member out of a genus of vines. It makes little Super Mario mushroom-mimicking flowers that smell quite fruity and attract small gnats as pollinators. The phone pics are crappy, but you get the idea! This is an incredibly rare plant in cultivation.



Foliage


The blooms sprout and cluster at the bottom of the trunk, only on pretty old specimens.

A small friend

And another

And another--all in the same day!

We have a Passiflora incarnata project, and I recently cut them back. But not before making sure the blooms didn't go to waste!



Next, I floated them in a couple inches of water so I could catch the reflection outside:


Cavendishia allenii, one of the neotropical blueberries.




Fall color of Franklinia alatamaha


NOID Doryopteris, which believe it or not is a FERN! I wanted to get this one to showcase foliar diversity in the ferns.

Another Doryopteris. Note how the fertile fronds look different and stick up from the crown, while the sterile fronds hug the ground in a rosette and smother the competition.

Got Randy Story's Begonia luxurians to treelike proportions in just a few months! This is a great gag plant, because those not in the know think it looks quite similar to something highly inappropriate! Thanks very much, Randy, and I hope you see this!

Christia vespertilionis


Got s'more stuff, but will save the CPs for next time. Until then, enjoy!
 
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  • #107
Nice stuff, Kevin! Glad to see that Cavendishia is still blooming, it's one of my favorite tropical blueberry species. The Doryopteris are really cool, too, have you ever collected spores from them?

Oh, and I'm still holding out against smartphone adoption, though probably not for much longer.
 
  • #108
@Nat: Hey, I keep forgetting to mention this, but I have collected a few dozen seeds from the 4 I. pubescens--I crossed them all amongst themselves, and some pods appear to have selfed. Anyhoo, you're completely welcome to seeds or the mature plants at any time. I imagine you'll want them after the GH gets finished, but I just wanted to put that on your radar. As for the Doryopteris, while they are bearing spores, I haven't collected/sown any yet, nor do I have plans to do so (so they're available!). If you are ever interested, I am an American Fern Society member and we can get you some spores (50 freakin' cents a packet!) if you so desire =). Of virtually anything.

....and the Macleania berries fell off........... :ohno: Suppose I will put some effort into selfing upon its next flowering.... or if we get another Macleania going by next year, I'll make the first hybrids!!
 
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  • #109
Finally got over my cold and felt good enough to get my Nepenthes photos uploaded... these are from a week or so ago. Many of the Neps are finally coming into their own.

'Red Leopard' I know it's common, but I honestly just love it every time I see it.

One of the few Neps I've grown via seed. I want to say it is 'Wolfplant' x (thorelii x aristolochioides) but could also be ventricosa x (thorelii x aristolochioides). I'm really drawing a blank and forgot to check the tag. Growing neps from seed requires far more space than I can dedicate, unfortunately.

Look at the dripping-blood-colored back of the pitcher walls! N. x 'Curtain of Blood!" Hah, just kidding--I'm quite hesitant to just name cultivars at the drop of the hat. It's gotta be a substantial plant.

ampullaria

truncata finally outgrowing my hand.

can't get enough of that fangy goodness

Pinglandia. I really screwed them up badly a year ago with iron chelate. Badly. Lesson.... learned. I need to remember to prop some of the gigantea. I want a field of gigantea. It's the only Ping that interests college kids because the leaves are big enough for them to feel. I know that's a weird thing to say, but I can tell you from experience that this genus is a tough sell unless you can goop up someone's fingers. Especially the girls.

Can you folks believe that this is............


A 'TARNOK!' :0o: Yep. That sound is your mind being blown right now. I'd easily set this thing's flowers on fire just to see their ugliness die, but these pitchers must've been made doubly beautiful to compensate!

And btw--next person to view will bump this thread to 10,000. Wow! Glad y'all are enjoying!
 
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  • #110
That is some awesome coloration on that 'Tarnok'! :-D Everything else looks great too.
 
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  • #111
If you ask me, that freak 'Tarnok' pitcher suggests that the plant was introgressed with flava at some point in it's past history. That's a x moorei pitcher if I ever saw one.
 
  • #112
If you ask me, that freak 'Tarnok' pitcher suggests that the plant was introgressed with flava at some point in it's past history. That's a x moorei pitcher if I ever saw one.

I would suspect to see something amiss in the flower though if so, but they're exactly the same as any other Tarnok. Definitely weird, and the fenestrations are pretty light. Could just be the effect of not having a dormancy for 20+ years as well as being under glass that whole length of time. Who knows.
 
  • #113
I wasn't referring to that individual plant but rather the clone itself. That pitcher is showing some heavy flava influence.
 
  • #114
That Bical is awesome! How cold does the greenhouse get in winter?
 
  • #115
I have the controls set to 75F lows, but since the collection is housed in our older (built in 70s), leakier, and less well-insulated houses, I usually expect the lows to range anywhere from 65F to 55F (on the coldest nights). They are also heated the old-fashioned way, with a giant boiler that pumps heated water through piping in the greenhouses. This generates a nice, humid atmosphere and is one of the reasons I am able to get good growth from everything year-round. Were it gas heat, which is newer but much drier, I would begin losing the aerial roots on the orchids as well as a lot of the pitchering potential from the Nepenthes.
 
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  • #116
Thanks! My small GH had a low last year of 39 with one heater, but it was 28 outside! This year I have a second heater, but I'll keep the Bical inside in a terrarium until I'm sure.
 
  • #117
First, orchids!

Tolumnia Red Berry something-or-other

Oncidium alliance, can't remember, photographed as an afterthought

Cattleya, NOID. I've nicknamed him the flamethrower though.

...really heats up winter, right?

it's currently Phalaenopsis season. This white one ($1 on clearance) is my favorite. He has glued himself to the wall, 2ft away. His roots look like a spider web. He ain't-a-goin nowhere.

Swapped for this last year, forgot to check the tag, but what a killer plant. First bloom!

Tolumnia 'Genting Volcano' is my guess.... I can't remember the cultivar, but that's what tags are for. Up to 275 orchids now I think.

Probably one of my favorite orchids of all time: Den. spectabile, the Octopus Flower. I saw this desiccated plant on clearance and scooped it up. 2 years invested in it, and it blooms like a mother. What a plant. I am in love. It smells like roses. Can you imagine being the first to discover this plant??????

Glorious

The nerdery is just pouring out of me. What a plant!!

Platystele stenostachya. Tiny, cute, bright neon orange. Paul B. takes far, far better photos of this than I.


And now, for a change of pace:

Ceratostema silvicola, one of the neotropical Ericads (i.e. BLUEBERRIES!). That's right, a gorgeous, shiny, neon-colored, nectar-loaded, hummingbird-pollinated ::passes out:: But seriously, this is among the rarest of rare plants. You couldn't find a single place to buy this guy. Seed-grown, first bloom. I have been fighting hard to make this group of plants a major part of the collection.

It only gets bigger and better in the years to come. When I saw this plant, watering over the holidays, I thought that it'd given me a christmas present. What a treat--it's only 2 years old!! I believe that's a record.

SG N. Wolfplant x (thorelii x aristolochioides)

'Red Leopard', a big personal fave. It's so tubby.


D. aliciae direct from the greenhouse of Mr. Barden.

D. natalensis
 
  • #118
Your job must be so tedious, Kevin LOL!
Platystele stenostachya is the most profoundly photo-defying orchid I have ever met. It makes Lepanthopsis astrophora look like Cattleya warscewiczii in comparison!
 
  • #119
Oh my god! What a beautiful collection of plants. I wish my university or even a nearby university had a such a collection. Thanks for posting so many drool worthy photos!
 
  • #120
Your job must be so tedious, Kevin LOL!
Platystele stenostachya is the most profoundly photo-defying orchid I have ever met. It makes Lepanthopsis astrophora look like Cattleya warscewiczii in comparison!

Exactly why I intended to get one to you, so you could work your magic behind the lens.

Without further ado, I present some of the pre-spring botanical goodness of the teaching collection.

S. flava var. maxima, F1 plant from Francis Marion NF, Berkeley Co., SC. This batch has produced some stunning clones! This plant's siblings are now conserved in 3 university collections, 2 nonprofit collections, and almost a dozen private ones.

An example pitcher, sibling to the previous flower photo. Note the highly rolled hood edges.

First-ever blooms on Ping gigantea!!!!!!!!!!


Like how the light fell

Now for orchids:
A very much less-than-ideal photo of SLC Jewel Box 'Dark Waters' AM/AOS


Phaius tankervilleae

Paph. delanatii

AND it smells lovely!!

Laelia rubescens (thanks for the ID, [MENTION=11346]gnathaniel[/MENTION]!)

Epidendrum radicans from the late Dave Johnston, of Jewell Orchids

One of the grad students dropped off a nice Phal for the collection
 
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