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Help me ID this struggling D. spatulata

TheFury

Oh, the humanity!!
So I'll start by saying that I'm thoroughly embarrassed to show you any plants in this state. This was my first CP - I got it around April. It was thriving for a long time - growing like a weed, spawning plantlets, flowering, clumping... the works.

Then, about two months ago, one of the mature plants in the clump started dying. I didn't remove any of the dead foliage... perhaps this was my first mistake. I then repotted it into LFS and separated the clump a bit.... maybe my second mistake. Anyway, the decline continued. Two weeks ago, I set up my grow rack and finally gave it some decent lighting. I also got a RO filter where I had previously been using fine, vintage aged tap water.

OK. So yesterday I decided to repot it into a mixture of peat & sand (Hoffman western desert sand... I've heard it works just fine; no carbonate minerals, good size grit, etc.). I sprayed the plant and roots with sulfur-based fungicide and then rinsed them off with RO water. I found a nice number of plantlets growing underneath the main plant. Nice! So I spread those out over the media a bit.

Now, I understand that some varieties of D. Spatulata require dormancy. I got this one off of a certain online vendor based in Ohio, and it was sold as a "spoon leaf sundew." Not much to go on there. I emailed the vendor today to ask for more information about the specific variety, and the only answer I got was "our supplier does not have any further information on the variety." Great.

Anyone guess what this is? If it's going dormant naturally, then I'm not so worried. If it's not a variety that goes dormant, then... wtf??

Again, I apologize in advance for these photos... it's murder...

IMG_0141.jpg


IMG_0143.jpg



Many thanks!!
 
it appears to be dormant
 
Hmm... solid... well that's a start! Any idea what variety it might be then? Will I need to give this one a cold dormancy like other temperates, or can I leave this in my grow rack over the winter? I'll be gradually reducing the photoperiod down to 9 hours over the coming weeks, and I'm guessing overnight temperatures will reach the low 60s or high 50s from time to time once the cold weather really hits.
 
My various pots/plugs of D. spatulata never seem to take to transplanting well. They stop growing and try to clump but slowly come back (but they look like that at first, definately). Maybe this is some sort of stress-induced dormancy. Oh well, just give it the proper conditions and it should pop back in a few months or so.
 
Since it's dormant, it appears that it is D. x tokaiensis, a hybrid between D. rotundifolia and D. spatulata. It also has the same characteristic leaf shape. No need to "force" this one into dormancy. If you give it warm enough temps it should snap out of it.

I have a few pics for comparison:
Tokaiensis_red-2.JPG


Tokaiensis_overhead_red-1.JPG
 
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See if you can find out who their supplier is. If the plants came from AgriStarts 3 then it is either "Fraser Island" form or Dr. Frankensnyder's (Ivan Snyder) monster hybrid of the Kanto type and D. spatulata var. gympiensis (both from Australia). It looks to me more like Dr. Frankensnyder's monster than Fraser Island. You may have to trace back through two or three suppliers back to AG3.

AG3 rates these as a hardiness zone of 10.
 
Interesting. Do the Fraser Island sundews go dormant? I do have what I know to be a D. spatulata "Fraser Island" but the rosettes are a good deal smaller than my mystery sundew, and the leaves aren't as green. See here:

1000000231.JPG


Now, before you compliment me on this great looking specimen, I must add a disclaimer that I've only had this plant for about two weeks, so it hasn't had a chance to get pissed off at me and die yet!! :-))

Anyway, given the size of this thing compared to the Fraser Island sundew, it may well be the Dr. Frankensnyder variety. I looked at AG3's website and their selection of plants is eerily similar to that offered by the vendor that sold me these plants, so this is probably their distributor. And if that's the case, then what they sell as "D. Spathulata" would be the monster hybrid, as you say. Nice.

So if it's hardiness zone 10... why is it dormant?? Is it entirely stress-induced? If that's the case, then I'm a bad caretaker...

EDIT: Then again, D. x tokaiensis looks like it might be a very real possibility, too... look at the shape of those leaves.... HMMMM
 
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AFAIK, straight up D. spatulata doesn't go dormant. So you may not have D. spatulata, but a hybrid.
 
I'm going to retract my original guess :)
D. x tokaiensis is pretty small (a little bigger than the Fraser Island form though) so I may have to retract my guess and go with the monster hybrid that I had never heard of or seen before! Looks pretty close to yours, though it's hard to tell.
Looking at your plant, it does look like the older leaves resemble the AG3 plant online, so I'd say that's your best bet.
 
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  • #10
Hmm - so monster hybrid it is! And since it's rated as hardiness zone 10, that would suggest that this dormancy is entirely stress-induced, correct? Poor thing...
 
  • #11
looks like D. aliciae to me. and it doesn't look like its going dormant or a type that goes dormant. try putting the pot in a higher humidity environment--under a plastic bag or dome. and keep it under lower light for a week or so. then increase the light exposure but keep the humidity higher for several weeks. See how they do.
good luck.
 
  • #12
The various D. spatulata I've grown crap out like that all the time on me. I haven't figured out what causes it or changing conditions helps in any way. They'll grow hale and hearty for months then poop out. They'll stay that way for months then start growing again or wither away. I just save some seed and start over again if they shuffle off this mortal coil.
 
  • #13
Interesting!! I'm hoping the plantlets that I found at the base of my D. spatulata will carry on their mothers legacy lol.

So I have it under a bag now. It's also a bit closer to the lights - probably about 6" under them. The photoperiod is at 13 hours now as I'm gradually reducing it to 9 hours for the winter. I also just did a foliar feeding with a light solution of SuperThrive. Hoping it pulls through!
 
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  • #14
The various D. spatulata I've grown crap out like that all the time on me. I haven't figured out what causes it or changing conditions helps in any way. They'll grow hale and hearty for months then poop out. They'll stay that way for months then start growing again or wither away. I just save some seed and start over again if they shuffle off this mortal coil.

Yeah... ditto... thought it was just me.
 
  • #15
Well that makes me feel better!

Anyway, still no luck getting this plant to perk up. Maybe it is just dormant. It's a waiting game now. But some of the plantlets I pulled out of the base of the largest rosette seem to be doing OK! Hope they keep on truckin'

Here's the latest from the battlefront:
DSC03570.JPG

Oh, the humanity!
 
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  • #16
Well that makes me feel better!

Anyway, still no luck getting this plant to perk up. Maybe it is just dormant. It's a waiting game now. But some of the plantlets I pulled out of the base of the largest rosette seem to be doing OK! Hope they keep on truckin'

Here's the latest from the battlefront:

Oh, the humanity!

Hi,

I have a similar looking hybrid. In a similar condition. It started to come out from the hibernation, but I noticed some pest crawling in the pot and made the situation worse by spraying it with neem oil extract. Bug is gone, but all the leaves that had dew on them now look burned. Poor plant.
Interestingly I was just considering creating a thread and asking about it. Good thing I stumbled upon this thread.

Picture will be included later when I'm home.
 
  • #17
I'm still not sure what plant this was. But all those things died anyway. Shucks, I guess I'll never know!

BUT, they do look quite similar to some other rosetted sundews I have:
DSC00179.JPG


Got these guys from SDCPs. I believe they're currently in some sort of dormant phase right now. Since I took this pic, the plants have grown lots of fuzzy hair around their crowns... you can see a bit of it in these pics, particularly the plants on the lower right... IF that's a clue for anyone here.
 
  • #18
When I've had plants respond like yours, even Drosera spatulata, it was most often because pests were attacking the crown/meristem and undersides of some leaves. Usually it was some form of plant parasitic mite, like spider/cyclamen. Sometimes aphids or thrips can also cause similar damage.

The pests mentioned are notoriously difficult to find and identify, they are very tiny. Also, difficult to remedy. Spider mites are not insects, so insecticides are often ineffective.
 
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