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Help! "Sweating" nepenthes!!!

Cindy

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Some plants have tiny droplets of clear sticky liquid, others have brown sticky stuff.

Any idea what problem it may be? Scales?
 
Where is it? Around the peristome? If the clear sticky liquid is dripping and oozzing down the front of the pitcher from the peristome it is nectar. This is normal I have it happen all the time. But brown liquid? I don't know what that is and it doesn't sound good to me.
 
Many Nepenthes also produce nectar on the leaves, tendril and outside of the pitcher. They could be anywhere from clear to brown color as it dries. My khasiana makes brown blobs of goo on the ground from nectar dripping off the peristome also...

I suspect this is what your seeing as opposed to sugar droplets caused by sucking insects.
Tony
 
Tony, the droplets are all under the leaves, hardly on the pitchers. It only started about a month ago. I've checked for sucking insects but found none so far.

Btw, the droplets are more on younger leaves and what sucking insects would cause such droplets?
 
Could it be just moisture condensation?
 
Well your right about scale usually being on the underside of the leaf, but the scale themselves are not normally sticky. What you find is that the upper side of the leaf just below the infested leaf will be come coated with sugar secretion. In humid environments this sugar will become coated in mildew. Scale also tend to be along the midvein of the leaf and the edges. Soft scale can also be easily wiped off the leaf with a moist papertowel. I don't think it is scale or any other insect.

Tony
 
I got worried because more and more of my plants are producing the droplets. The highlanders are worse, there are dents where the droplets form...like someone has been pricking them with a needle!

I suspected scale because I had some on my sarracenias before.
 
Speaking of dents or "pimples" on the Nepenthes leaves. Tony I sometimes get these on newly developed leaves what is it? The feel just like a brail (for blind people" sign. Anyways ever had or seen it?
 
hmm sunken dents in a leaf could be caused by a number of things that occured while the leaf was developing and expanding. Basically the leaf failed to expand its tissue in that area. Damage (mechanical, insect), moisture stress, extreamly cold/hot water hitting a temperature sensitive plant .. that kind of thing.

Raised bumps could be glands in the leaf/tendril/pitcher.. many Nepenthes have them. If I recall bicalcarata they even look black. They could also be caused by some localized damage while the leaf was developing also.
Tony
 
  • #10
Thanks Tony. It is probably temp. or humidity. But now I may know how to resist it. My merrilliana has none!Only the N.VeitchiixTruncata an my N.Truncata has them. And get this! My N.Ventricosa grows side by side with the Nep. Hybrid! And it has NO bumps! Is there something it can resist that the other cannot?
 
  • #11
Sure different species(and hybrids) can handle similiar stresses differently. What might be a near death shock to one plant might not even affect the plant next to it. Ventricosa is a very tough plant to many environmental conditions in part because it is has a thick hard leaf encased in a thick cuticle.
Tony
 
  • #12
Well that explians it. And this I just noticed may help us further be + on identifying the Nep. Hybrid. Since the N.Truncata from Catalani has the bumps on it's leaves AND the hybrid does too maby we are exactly right about 1 parent of the cross! The truncat has bumps and so does the hybrid!!!! AND the leaves are similar to Veitchii AND we already think it has Veitchii influence in it! Man! This search is getting exciting!!!
 
  • #13
I am deffinately convinced the hybrid has truncata and veitchii. But the question for me is whether or not it has something else also.. or if its something like truncata x veitchii crossed again to veitchii..
Tony
 
  • #14
SO your saying it may be N.TruncataxVeitchiixVeitchii? Pretty coll Tony! Why do you think so though? DOes it show more of a Veitchii parentage in it than Truncata? Besides the Veitchii parentage we definatly know that the Red Peristome comes from TRuncata RIght?
 
  • #15
Thanks Tony! You are great. I finally do not have to fret over those braille dots!
smile.gif
 
  • #16
The leaves holler veitchii while the pitcher is very truncata. What is surprising is that usually with a simple primary hybrid between two species the offspring are fairly uniform. The other truncata x veitchii that I have seen show much more truncata influence in the leaves. Truncata hybrids I have seen usually show a strong influence in the leaves. This plant has much more veitchii influence showing, which leads me to suspect that there is the possibility that it is more than just truncata x veitchii, and since the plant is very veitchii looking I would tend towards a second shot of veitchii or something similar. Since I have only seen a few plants of truncata x veitchii my experience with the range of characteristics the offspring show is very limited. Ideally one would want to look at hundreds of plants of the same cross to get a reasonable idea of what to expect the leaves and pitchers will look like. I do think that your plant is not producing mature pitchers yet. It takes a long time for veitchii's flairing peristome to become evident. (which leads to even more difficulty with Nepenthes on how they change as they mature and grow. What might appear to be one cross as a young plant might look like a different cross when it matures)

As for the red peristome, veitchii can have red (although usually not solid red) peristome and truncata can have a solid red peristome.
Tony
 
  • #17
Well that helps us out. What other Nep. Could have long leaves like Veitchii?
 
  • #18
the laws of genetics say, if that when plants are crossed, 50 percent of their offspring will run right down the middle of the road, 25% will be extreme towards one parent, and 25% extreme to the other...

Is it possible that we are looking at simply a Truncata X Vetchie that falls into the 25% that favors the Vetchie Parentage?
 
  • #19
hmm I disagree on the 25 25 50 deal for a pure primary hybrid.. IE one that is comprised of crossing one species with another. Example:
Species A with genes AA
Species B with genes BB

100% of the offspring will be AB

Taking however 2 plants of that hybrid and crossing them together gives something totally different:
AB x AB gives 25% AA 25% BB and 50% AB
YET the plant is still considered the same hybrid because it is a sibcross. Here is where you can have wider variation showing up in the offspring.
Tony
 
  • #20
Man Tony! You know your stuff on Neps! Especially on care culture and propagation and genetics. Ahh what the heck your are the "Ruler" and "genius" of Nepenthes!
 
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