And now, random CP thoughts and observations:
Firstly, I am very impressed with how rapidly the VFTs and dews grow, I have developed a habit of going out in the morning and inspecting the plants, checking to see what new traps or dew tentacles have appeared overnight, how far along the developing traps are, etc.
I have probably about 15 VFT typicals, 8 reds and 8 dentate, however some of all types look to be two together, and some have clusters of little baby plants growing by them, so all told in three pots Id guess about 40-50 plants.
And Ive noticed a few cool things. While some traps have the standard 3 triggers per lobe I have traps with 5, 7, and even 9 per lobe (the 7 and 9 are on typicals btw).
On the smaller plants with fewer leaves (or on my lowes batch the plants that had severely elongated leaves) Ive noticed that often the plants seems to send up the initial leaf or two with the focus on the leaf and not the trap, resulting in a small or non-functioning or even incompletely developed trap, but with a nice big broad leaf, then the later leaves have larger and functioning traps.
I have watched flies being caught (without any assistance from me), houseflies mainly, seems the flies are attracted to beer
and have even seen a trap catch two flies at once (yeah, pretty amazing, pretty lucky).
Also, the dentate (which are on average much smaller than the reds and typs at the moment) have much more articulated trap than the others, more severe curve on the spine, and I wonder if this helps them to capture considering the lack of 'bars' for their leafy cage, allowing the trap to close more completely on initial snap than would be necessary for a standard trap. Regardless, a few nights ago I was impressed to see one of the dentate had captured a damsel fly much larger than the trap itself, with the legs, wings and half the abdomen poking out the teeth of the trap. I tried to grab a pic but I couldnt get good focus with my crappy old digital.
One concern I have is that since my plants are currently in my screened patio that the dead bugs dont get washed out and some are getting moldy, but I do plan on moving them outside as soon as I get my hands on a table or cart for them, give them more sun but keep them up and out of the way of critters and my dogs.
Not much to say about my dews at the moment, my adelae are doing okay in my house on a sill and now theyre repotted but they are slow growers, watching the ones I accidentally scorched by putting them outside slowly recover is, well, slow.
The binata collection looks great however, those suckers grow like mad, Im just looking forward to the multifadas getting going a bit more as the binata and dichotoma are throwing up new growth all over the place, I have little horns and big horns in increasing abundance, now I want staghorns. And all of these dew up very nicely, a glistening haze of tiny bug death, looke very cool in the am as the morning sun shines through them
Finally, my nepenthes, seems to be liking its home, when I got it al the pitchers were dry so I put a little distilled in each. Dont know if it helped or not but initially many of the smaller upper pitchers browned up as well as a few of the large lower pitchers, but new pitchers are growing and one thing I thought was really cool is that the new pitchers have liquid in them before they open. I did not know that. And now new upper and lower pitchers are forming and again, the plant does seem to grow fairly rapidy, but the only other plant Ive spent much time watching was a pineapple, and for anyone who hasnt grown a pineapple let me just say it takes about 2 years to get one friggin fruit from a pineaple plant. It was good too, monstrous big and juicy as juicy could be, picked it a bit late and almost could have drank it.
Anyways, thanks for sloggin thru that, slow morning at work
Comments welcome as always.