Pinguicula live long?

[cuauhtemoc]

Hi. I was interested growing some pings. Are they all short lived compared to other cps? Which live the longest? What do you think are the easiest to start with? Thanks.

 

[Darcie]

I think most live as long as nothing tramatises them. P. primuliflora is one of the easiest to grow.

 

[PlantAKiss]

Hello Cuauhtemoc

Welcome to the forums!

I think the longevity depends on the species/hybrid. As with all plants, its varied.

As mentioned, P. primuliflora is one of the easiest to grow. Its also fairly easily obtainable. Exotic Gardens, host of this forum, offers prims and they sell nice, healthy plants.

One nice feature of P. primuliflora (a North American ping) is that they produce little clone-plantlets at the end of their leaves. So its fairly easy to keep this plant in cultivation as you have lots of babies. Mexican pings are pretty easy to reproduce through leaf cuttings.

I'm glad you want to give them a try.

Stick around and have some fun. Its a very nice community here.

Suzanne/PAK

 

[CP2k]

P.primuliflora does not live too long. At most a couple years, but it does produce plantlets on the leaves thereby insuring that the plant does not disappear from a collection.
Most Temperate and Mexican Pings are very long lived(besides the annual species).

 

[Darcie]

'course, since the plantletts are clones of the origenal you could argue it's the same plant in some circles depends on your point of view

 

[cephalotus88]

A very easy and quite longlived ping. would be P.moranensis. They are very, very easy to care for: I grow mine in a pot of longfibered sphagnum, but mixes of peat/perlite or peat/sand will do well also. Despite it being a Mexican ping, it does well when not given a dry period. I keep mine yearround moist and it produces its own succulent leaves by itself.

 

[Joseph Clemens]

<span style='font-size:12pt;line-height:100%'>How long they live, basically depends on how well we care for them. Theoretically they should be able to continue indefinitely. However, many Pinguicula are less than indestructible, they are easily destroyed by pest, disease, or poor culture conditions. All of these are basically dependent on our management abilities. As has been mentioned, one way to help us overcome the ephemeral nature of Pinguicula under our care, is to "propagate, propagate, distribute, and propagate some more".</span>

 

[Tamlin Dawnstar]

In the case of Mexican Pinguicula, they have turned their own fragility into a survival mechanism, a very elegant form of clonal reproduction. I think their nature is individually ephremal, depending not on self longevity and seed production over a long lifetime, but rather on a superior evolved mechanism of clonal reproduction. Genetic recombination via sexuall reproduction may have no real advantage to a stable population adapted to a specific niche. So, what if the sun burns out the apical meristem of a Pinguicula species? The leaf bases, secure to the plant body and often buried in the substrate will fall fall away from the parent body, root, and perpetuate the clone. If the plants wither from heal and lack of moisture, they will draw from the outer leaves first, protecting and nuturing the center apical meristem . It would be of no benefit to the plant to drop its leaves in a bone dry and inhospitable environment.

So if the clone is identical to the parent, it is the same plant. It matters not if the individual perishes, the genetic material is intact and unaltered. In this sense the plants are indeterminate in life span, much like the pygmy sundews.

In collections the best plan, as Joseph says, is to propagate, propagate, propagate. That's the name of the game for the Mexican species.

I have also noted a tendency in my plants to split when they reach any large size. The biomass remains approximately the same (and in fact over time increases as the individuals grow) but now there are 4 apical meristems: 4 insurance policies. It is a very winning strategy. Consider this when you think about plant size, since the true size of a clonal population is really the size of the individual, as is its age.