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D. Capensis Stem?

DavyJones

Is ready to take this hobby to a whole new level
I have a 5 inch pot with 2 rather large D. capensis, and several offspring (what a surprise.) I had let them get extremely scraggly, and really don't pay that much attention to them. Tonight I was doing some maintenence on some Nepenthes, and decided to cut back the dead growth on said D. capensis. Rather interesting is how there is almost 1.5-2 inches of just old 'stem' (for lack of a better word) that has accumulated under the growing tips of the plant. It is literally the ends of old leaves that I had cut off over time. I'm assuming this is normal for this plant, but I haven't run across any threads detailing this. When I eventually re-pot them in the near future, should I plant this stem portion underneath the new media, or leave it above as is? I will admit it looks kind of goofy. No pictures tonight, as they are probably not needed, and it's rather late. I ought to be heading to bed.
 
I've seen 'capensis trees' which seem to be low level light condition side effects. Not really a bad thing, but the plant can end up looking like a mini palm tree if taken care of well.

Anything for survival in capensis' book.
-Nathan
 
I have a similar situation. I was wondering if I could just chop off the plants - would they grow new leaves/plants from the base? I don't really like them stems - I think they're ugly, and they seem to form no matter how much light they get.
 
The savage Garden describes a cultivar of Capensis calles "stem forming" in which the plant liberally produces a verticle stem.
 
If you don't like the stem, you can either replant it so the stem is buried, as though it were a younger plant. If you want to get 2 plants out of it, an interesting technique is cutting the plant just above the soil and letting it come back from the roots. Take the above ground portion, and cut off most of the stem so that there is just a little stem left below all the new growth. Place this in a baggie with peat moss and sand, shoving the small stem portion into the media. Then, place it under lights and let it sit there for a few weeks.
I've tried this with both D. capensis and D. adelae and it works suprisingly well. I've also heard it has been done with D. madagascariensis, so I'm guessing you can pretty much use this technique with most sundews.
 
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