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Nepenthes hamata

I've been looking at pictures of N.hamata and I'm wondering if there are different forms of this species, take a look at these two pictures:

nepenthes%20hamata%201.jpg

picture from www.plantarara.com

tn_asien_1991_1943.jpg

picture from www.wistuba.com

Are these genetic differences, upper pitcher vs. lower pitcher or response to growing conditions?

Andrew
 
one is an upper pitcher and the other is a lower pitcher. i only know that there is one type of this plant.
 
Hi Vagabond,

George hit the nail dead center. The first picture however is the red flush of an N. hamata. It has a red peristome rather than the brownish-purple. I have the black peristome variety but my light is low and the peristomes and pitchers aren't nearly as colorful as they should be. Anyhow here's a picture of a newly opened pitcher. Pitcher is a few days old.

hamata1.JPG
 
There seems to be some variation in color of the pitchers. It does take a week or so for them to color up and growing conditions will affect it somewhat. Also small plants (pitchers a couple inches or smaller) look alot more similar and don't always have fully developed coloration and markings.

The first picture is one that I call red flush. As it gets larger and is grown under good light the color between the red veins fills in. Much different than the typical dark spotted ones. These types can vary also with the base pitcher color varying from green to light purple.

Nhamata_RflushMTCR.jpg

You can see the younger pitchers only displaying the red veining in the background.
Tony
 
Tony, does that N.hamata that you posted stay a red color or does it change colors with age to black/purple
 
It does get a little more purplish as it ages.  But it seems to retain that suffused look rather than the distinct spotting seen in the other pictures.  It also does need to be a decent sized plant before it really starts to show it's stuff.  Not sure how it would respond to underlights growers either as far as coloring up.
T
 
I guess I'll have to join in the fun too! I guess I've got a got a "purple" variety from Tony. I like the almost black peristome! Nep hamta is my favorite cos it's got those stiff wiry hairs and teeth.

Heres the pitcher which formed in January (the peristome is almost expanded). The pitcher is 3 3/4" tall.
hamata1-03p.jpg


Here is the whole plant in a plastic net pot the pot is about 9" across
hamata1-03.jpg


Once it settled in it's growing pretty quickly (all the pitchers you see are ones made since it arrived to me in June or so). The original pitchers dried up very fast due to my lack of adequte humidity (now my tank is filled with a dense white fog from the humidifier most of the time). I'm very anxious to see the large pitchers on my plant.

It's a great highlander if you can replicate the environment of very humid (this guy will snap his lids shut within hours if it doesn't have the humidty it wants and within a few days you will loose the pitcher altogether) and cool nights, cool days doen't hurt either as most of my highlanders are doing better in winter with the cooler days which are never more than 75*F
whereas august daytime temps can hit 85*F.
 
Hmm interesting information here, I personally prefer the red flush but even the typical one looks very nice. I'm putting together a highland terrarium to start into gorwing highland neps again and I think I'll add this species to the list of prospective tenants.

Swords, I've heard that its very sensitive to humidity changes, apparently the leaves are quite thin and loose moisture very quickly?

Andrew
 
Yes, it is most definately a humidity hog! The more the merrier for Mr. hamata!

What I did was get a humidistat (like a thermostat but instead of a heater it controls a humidifier) and plug in my ultrasonic humidifier the type that make dense fog, not warm steam or "cool mist". The humidistat is set at 80% but it is installed near the lights so that the humidity sensor on the humidistat is kept drier than the actual bench area where the plants are. This causes the plants humidity to actually be in the 90%+ range. The leaves are "clammy" meaning cool and almost wet but be sure to keep the air moving from either a small fan inside the tank or blowing through a vent from a window (which is what I do) as highland plants really appreciate fresh moving humidified air which was the hardest part for me to get correct with my highland chamber. Also building a chamber out of a material which will retain cool air will help with the cool nights.
 
  • #10
Josh,

Looking at the older leaves on your plant, the burning and the fact that they appear longer and less succulant than the latest leaves, I think the plant is now getting more light that it used to have. You should be looking forward to seeing some great pitchers soon
smile.gif
 
  • #11
Thanks Rob! I was actually getting a bit concerned that the leaves were not reddening as the earlier leaves but the pitchers have increased pretty dramatically despite the lack of pigment. There simply may be less UV coming through the power compact florescents it's growing under as the bulbs are quite old (might be a year old, might be two). I will probably put a 400W metal halide ontop the chamber instead of replacing the 200 watts worth of PCs (replacing the bulbs would cost the same as running the unused halide for six months).

More light has always got to be better right? Is it possible I could damage a Nepenthes with too much light even if humidity is high (90%), temps are correct and the air is moving?
 
  • #13
Josh, I am really not an expert on growing under artificial lighting. I've only ever done this for a few years whilst I lived in Hong Kong in the 1990s and then I used a combination of sodium vapor and metal halide lights.

In my opinion you are unlikely to give a highland species too much light artificially. Older leaves may suffer, but new leaves should be tougher and pitchers larger and better colored. However, increasing light levels greatly is also likely to increase the level of infra-red (heat) and cause heating of the leaf surface and surrounding materials with consequent drop in relative humidity which the plants won't like at all. It's a tricky subject which I guess Jeff Schafer will know rather more about than I do.
 
  • #14
Josh,

with giving the highlander more light where some of them don't mined it but also you have to think about the ones that don't like it at all and like it more on the parcal light but, from yourset up you do have the shelves in there to block some of the light to get to them.

to answer some what of what i have noticed is when i was running to bulbs flor. and them jumped up to 4 bulbs the drop in the humidity did go down some and the temp went up some also. so basiclly i had to pump the ultrasonic on to full blast to kepp the humidity up and move the light up some to lower the temp. so running more light to them would cause the enviroment to change. it would be something you would have to play around w/ to get the enviroment to where it is supposed to be but, on another note i don't run the same kind of lighting system you have.

now Rob mentioned that your pitcher are going to look better than that. now that is somethingi wouldlike to see later on in a month or 2 when you have a new set of pitchers coming from the plant. already i think your N.hamata looks great. still waiting on that one to add to my grow list.
 
  • #15
If I boost up the lighting to MH I will still have the humidity and temperature controlled by humidistat and thermostat to keep those parameters the same there will just be about twice the amount of light.

Is there a way to measure the infrared heat on the leaf surface? Does air flow have no influence on this sort of heat transfferance no matter if fans and cooling equiptment are in play, damage can still occur?
 
  • #16
Hi,

under good light levels the colour of the leaf midribs of the purplish clone of N. hamata will turn to a red to purple colour:

N_hamata_leaf_0203_small.jpg


Joachim
 
  • #17
Neat, What lighting are you growing your N. hamata under Joachim?

BTW is that a stolon of U. longifolia or U. praelonga growing in the Nep pot in the upper middle of the picture?
 
  • #18
swords,

look at Joachim's homepage.

Martin
 
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