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Nectar production in S. purpurea?

Neither my S. purpurea nor my S. purpurea hybrid seem to produce nectar in their pitchers, they're just waxy and completely dry. I always figured this was typical for the species. However, yesterday I felt the inside of another S. purpurea at a nursery, and found that it was producing copious amounts of the stuff. Why is this? Do some plants just not produce nectar? Does it have to do with where the plant is originally from?
 
Not sure...I've never noticed any nectar on my purps either.
 
Hmm, i've never seen any on my purp either.. But then I put water in my purps pitchers anyhow..
 
Mine secrete a lot of nectar. I can see it dripping down the pitcher body at times.
 
Crazy! I guess it really does vary from plant to plant, and mine aren't defective. I wonder if it has any influence on how many insects the plant catches...
 
Weird observation: The venus flytraps I have in my greenhouse have nectar one the outer parts of the trap, so much it's almost goopy looking.

The flytraps I have growing outside of the greenhouse, get the same treatment, minus the greenhouse, have no nectar stuff.

Could it be humidity? I should put a Sarr in my GH to see...
 
I don't think the catch rate affects nectar production. Try looking for nectar on the lip of the leaves, that's usually where it's produced.
 
Haha, I was wondering the opposite, if nectar production affects the catch rate. Oftentimes I see insects land on the plant but then fly away; I wonder if the presence of nectar would lure them in and increase the chance of them falling in.

Perhaps the humidity does have something to do with it...
 
Nectar does affect capture rate by quite a bit. There are some plants that won't produce much nectar and don't really catch anything. How wet is the soil?
 
  • #10
My Purp barely produces any nectar; not enough to be seen at least.
 
  • #11
The soil's pretty wet, the pot sits in a tray of water and soaks up as much as it can. My non-purpurea sarrs (S. minor, S. jonesii, S. flava) all produce tons of nectar under the same conditions.
 
  • #12
Just because you can't see the nectar doesn't mean it isn't present. A touch test reveals more than sight. The nectar trail on the ala seldom has visible nectar but is almost always sticky to the touch. Sometimes you can see beads of nectar on the trail.

From my own observations with seedling grown indoors under lights grown in constantly standing water nectar was almost always visible on all the species or subspecies being cultivated. Some species/subspecies produced copious amounts of nectar.

When grown outdoors the amount of visible nectar varies from observation to observation. Since this is not an attribute I take regular notice of little inference can be made of the factors behind the variation. It could be the amount and speed of wind, relative humidity, watering, time of the year, time of the day, the temperatures and dewpoints of the past few days - anything really.

The sense of smell in insects is several quantum levels above the senses of humans. What may be undetectable to feeble human senses may be irresistible to an insect. As I recall one paper mentioned the nectar has a different ultraviolet light absorption curve. Insects can see the UV spectra, humans cannot.
 
  • #13
The only thing my Purp catches is springtails ;/
 
  • #14
Natalie, you have the same taste in plants as I do, jonesii has to be my absolute favorite.

My purp has been drowning yellow jackets, and it's not even that big. Try touching the lip, I'm willing to bet that it's sticky. You could always try licking it, but I really don't recommend it. Bugs have probably been all over it.
 
  • #15
Jonesii is definitely a cool one... I can't wait to see how mine matures. Here's a short video I made of a fly encountering mine:

<iframe width="560" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/y4oNLGXglWg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I felt all around the lips of my purpurea pitchers, and I can't detect any stickiness, just waxiness. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I keep the water level low in the tray for the VFTs, combined with the low humidity. I'll move the purp into a separate tray with more water and see what happens.
 
  • #16
Where is your jonesii from? It looks slightly different from mine.

I keep my purp with my VFTs and it produces plenty of nectar. I don't even have my plants in a tray, they're in an 18" pot that I top water. Both plants are growing very well and secreting abundant amounts of nectar.
 
  • #17
Not sure where the jonesii is originally from, it didn't come with locality data when I bought it. That video makes the color on the plant look weird though... It's actually more of a lime green than lemon yellow.



So far no nectar on the purp though...
 
  • #18
It's different from mine then, mine is more of a rust red color. Give the purp some time, they're slow until they adapt to their conditions.
 
  • #19
I have a purp montana I grow exclusively inside under lights, and a purp venosa I grow outside only. The one under lights is dripping with nectar, it drools down the from the peristome and down the pitchers. I suspect its because no water washes it away, and no insects ever land on it to lap it up. My outside purp never shows any visible nectar, but I suspect it gets washed away and lapped away by insects.
 
  • #20
Interesting... I think it might be because of the humidity where I am, the nectar probably just evaporates as it is being secreted, if it is being secreted. I can't imagine it all being eaten by insects, since my purp really doesn't seem to catch that much prey, not as much as my sarrs that produce tons of nectar.
 
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