Giant Cephalotus follicularis "myth or reality"

[agustinfranco]

Hi all:

I would like to welcome Jonathan to the forums. I hope that we all can learn more from him and hopefully he can also learn some things from us!!.

Regarding pitcher size, it would be helpful if from now on, we measure from the bottom of the pitcher to the peristome (or mouth). Why?, because as you may all know that the lid moves up and down depending on the relative humidity. Therefore, a pitcher with an average size of 2-2.25 inches by the old method, in fact, it should measure 1.75-1.8 inches in reality.

The next target should be to compare the Julie Jones's clone with both the german and the hummer's giant!!. How??.
Well, genetic analysis would be the way to go.

Gus

 

[Tamlin Dawnstar]

Gus,

You may indeed be right, I could have the giant form and not know it. I certainly defer to your greater experience in this, I just have not grown enough plants of either form to know

I greatly look forward to the published results of your research. If you have permission to reprint the article, please consider doing so in Pete Thiel's Online CP Ezine.
This is just the sort of thing that would be perfect for it.

 

[agustinfranco]

All:

I would like to announce that the article titled :

Cephalotus follicularis giant forms is available online at:

http://www.humboldt.edu/~rrz700....nt.html

I would like to thank Mr. Robert R. Ziemer for his assistance in publishing this article. Without his help, it may have taken a lot longer to make this wish come true.

Gus

 

[D muscipula]

Thanks Gus.  Is there any work being done right now to investigate polyploidy in giant cephs?

One suggestion i have is that you replace "quicksilver" with mercury, as that is by far the most commonly understood term (at least here in the states).  It amazes me that mercury vapor lamps achieve such good results considering the poor spectrum of said lamps.  It wasn't clear from the article how much the Hg lamps are supplemented by natural lighting.  Could you please explain a bit more?  I have my cephs under artificial lighting, and would like to optimize the conditions as much as possible.

I have to say that i still don't see the difference in the ventral T you mention, at least from the photos in the article.   It would be really nice to have a labeled photos of a Hummer's giant and true giant, with the differences marked for those of us too inept to see it ourselves.  However, the increased "teeth" size on the peristome is very evident, even to me.  Interesting.

 

[CP2k]

The first sentence of the first paragraph under the Fig.3 photograph states, "Under artificially controlled conditions, this plant can reach up to 8cm long (3 inches)."
Do you mean the pitchers can reach 8cm?

 

[Tamlin Dawnstar]

Gus,

You should be very proud of producing such an excellent article! It was worth the wait....and those photos....!!!
Congratulations on a job well done I know how hard you have worked on this article, drawing together the many facts, and communicating with growers all over the world. Thanks for sharing these efforts with all of us!




Big as an egg! WOW!

 

[Barry-Rice]

Hey Folks,

Something important should be noted in this discussion of giant Cephalotus plants. The cultivar description of Cephalotus 'Hummer's Giant' notes the primary characteristic of this cultivar is its giant pitchers. Therefore, although it may seem strange, ANY Cephalotus with genetically fixed, giant traps is 'Hummer's Giant.' The plant referred to as "true giant" in Agustin Franco's excellent article is therefore actually just another clone of  Cephalotus 'Hummer's Giant'. If someone wants, they could certainly establish the "true giant" as a new cultivar, they'd just have to publish an article naming the plant, and saying why it is different.

Oh, another minor criticism of the article is that the cultivar name should always be set in single quotes, not double quotes.

All that aside, an interesting read! Good to hear that there are so many clones of these big plants out there!

Cheers

Barry

 

[agustinfranco]

Thank you William, Mr. Rice and all of you. The purpose of writing this article is to make clear once and for all how many ceph giants are available in the world.

I also suspected the same thing as Mr. Rice. However, even though, I am tempted to introduce the true giant and register it as another cultivar, I do respect the fact that Mr. Harold Weiner discovered it and brought it to everybody's attention.

If I get to speak to Harold Weiner in the future, I would ask him for permission to formally introduce this cultivar to the world of CP's.

Agustin Franco

 

[Barry-Rice]

8--></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (agustinfranco @ July 15 2003,12

</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Thank you William, Mr. Rice and all of you. The purpose of writing this article is to make clear once and for all how many ceph giants are available in the world.

I also suspected the same thing as Mr. Rice. However, even though, I am tempted to introduce the true giant and register it as another cultivar, I do respect the fact that Mr. Harold Weiner discovered it and brought it to everybody's attention.

If I get to speak to Harold Weiner in the future, I would ask him for permission to formally introduce this cultivar to the world of CP's.

Agustin Franco[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
Hi Agustin,

There is quite a bit of interest in giant Cephalotus plants. I'd definitely encourage you to establish a cultivar name for another clone if it has distinct, describable characteristics.

While it would be, I think, polite and good form to obtain permission and even perhaps co-authorship from Harold Weiner in the description of this plant, it is not necessary. Once the originator starts distributing the plant, it is "open season" for anyone who might wish to register the name.

But as I said, I would try to contact Mr. Weiner and work out some mutually satisfactory arrangement ahead of time.

Cheers

Barry

 

[agustinfranco]

Dear Mr. Meyer-Rice:

I am going a step further, I am going to analyze the genetic differences between the giants besides phenotypic characteristics. It is matter of time, before we'll get some results. When I do, it'll be a another nice article.

I do believe on what you say, it is now a matter of time.

Agustin Franco

 

[monkeyman]

I would like to bring this topic up again, because I think I have dicovered a symbiotic fungus growing in one of my pots of Ceph. 'Giant'. The Ceph. 'Giant' is the clone from Wistuba and I would like to note that it is definately not slow growing, even under very high light. Whether or not this is due to the fungus I'm not sure. But I will try to find out. The fungus in question is brown and threadlike. It seems to grow all around the base of the Ceph. and into the sphagnum. I have only found this fungus in one of my pots of Cephalotus. But I recently innoculated the pot of another Ceph. with this fungus and will report any increases in growth rate.

Mike

 

[agustinfranco]

Hi Mike:

Thanks for your input!!. I would like to inform you though that Richard Davion from South Australia is doing a Master's degree on Cephalotus follicularis symbiotic fungus!!. He is been working on it for several years now!!. maybe you should get in touch with him in the future. Please let me now or Tamlin Dawnstar know about it, if you are interested.

Agustin

 

[monkeyman]

I am definately interested. I hadn't counted on reporting my findings to anyone. Partly because I didn't think it was of any scientific value(Until I remembered this topic), but mostly because I'm a lazy teenager(I'm only 13) I guess I'd better get to writing huh?

Mike

 

[agustinfranco]

Hi Monkeyman:

That's fine. I am proud of you, just to think that at your age, you have found something interesting. Please do me a favour, don't lose that interest.... \

I am scientist myself and this is what it takes to find interesting things. keep up the good work

Gus

 

[cephalotus88]

Agustin,
Awesome article on Cephalotus! I haven't stopped by this forum area for some time, so I guess I really missed out on this great discussion. This might have been discussed already, but has anyone ever tried this method of producing larger pitchers, as some would do with Nepenthes=

Find a developing pitcher and increase relative humdity around that particular area. I do this in many ways for my surviving nepenthes by placing ethier live sphagnum or LFS moss under the developing pitcher. In time, those certain pitchers will be greatly larger then the ones without this treatment.

I was going to attempt this with my cephaltous specimens, but due to a heat wave which killed off or badly injured my collection, I didn't have the chance, as my cephalotus died down and is recently starting to send up new foliage. Someone with a resonably large cephalltus should try this and see if the pitchers may get larger then the others.

I will try this on my own, once my cephalotus plants get larger. As for now, I am trying my best not to give away all my CP's lol

for i can't wait for them to grow out of thier messed up state

 

[Alvin Meister]

I've ordered a cephalotus and it should come on Thursday

I doubt it'll be a giant, but I'll post a photo.

 

[agustinfranco]

Dear Alvin:

Please let me know if you ever wanted to get a giant form of cephalotus. I can give you the names of places which sell at least the one of the giant forms!!

Agustin

 

[agustinfranco]

Hi all:

The Giant cephs are back again. nicer and greener. I have some pictures to post soon

Gus

 

[agustinfranco]

Dear all:

As promised, last weekend i went to the annual show of the carnivorous plant society in Melbourne Australia. I met Paul Edwards: an outstanding cephalotus and nepenthes grower. He took a picture of his plant for me and i was holding the ruler

This may the collector's corner clone grown under ideal conditions to achieve such size. he grew it in a round fishtank with 50%peat and 50% sand with an overlay of gravel. He hardly water the tank and kept a lid on top of the fishtank

Please, enjoy

Gus

 

[SnowyFalcon]

That's a big pitcher! Not a whole lot of coloration, but the size makes up for it.

SF