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Last year I noticed that my 'mother' plant was looking a bit ragged - not growing as well as it usually did. Days & then weeks went by with me noticing the same thing each time I looked at it & promising myself that I would repot it very soon. Finally, one day I noticed not only had the leaves gotten continually smaller but that there was a browning of the plant in the center where new leaves emerged. Of course now, I dropped what I was doing & repotted the plant in new live LFS. Too late. I lost the plant that had provided many babies over the past few years. How stupid of me!! :crazy: :poke: :headwall:

I took my largest 'baby' plant* and placed it into a 4" pot of live LFS. After a few months, I purchased a culture of wingless fruit flies for some of my other plants (D. ascendens & D. villosa) and decided to try them with the schizzy. To my surprise, contrary to D'Amato's statements (or my understanding of his statements), the plant really took off with more growth than I've ever seen. I grew my 'mother' plant for a number of years & never had the notched leaf the plant is named for**. Recently, the fed plant had it's 1st ...

For folks who can provide humid highland conditions and like a challenge, schizzies are some great plants.

Here's a top view:
DschizandraRS.jpg


Different angle (check out the dew on the leaf at 3 o'clock!):
DschizandrasideRS.jpg


The notch (... those bugs are volunteers - not WFF's):
DschizandrasplitRS.jpg


* - largest 'baby' was ~1" diameter. While initially, it might take a while to dial in conditions that schizzies enjoy (unless you're Pyro or Jeff), once you find them, these dews are super easy to propagate via root or leaf cuttings (see pics in growlist).
** - ooops - not true. Here's Andreas Fleischmann correcting Barry Rice "Barry, however the specific name "schizandra" refers to the split anther tips, not to the leaf tips"
 
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:clap: :cry: They grow up so fast!
 
That is a beautiful plant! Too bad i can't touch these!
 
Wow, beautiful specimen!
 
Waa Really beautiful !
 
Looking good Ron.

I hope to have conditions to grow this plant someday.
 
I miss my lettuces i.e. D. schizandra. They do exceedingly well in my conditions until the weather warms up in March. Then they rot within a day or two. My largest was 6" across. :cry:

They are actually much easier than expected as long as the temperature remains constantly cool.
 
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I need to try some of these in my highland greenhouse then o_O
Washington ftw.
Ill have to see if a friend of mine here in WA has any success with em (once I'm back in WA)
 
Looks like a nice salad with the dressing already included. Every time pictures of this plant pop up, I can't wait to take a look. Such an interesting looking sundew.
 
  • #10
A visitor down to my greenhouse brought me a pot of shizzy when he came. I really wasn't too sure what to do with it, since I have lost them before. So I put it on a shaded shelf, fairly close to the cooler and redirected a couple vents to blow in that direction. I wouldn't say it's quite HL conditions, but surely not as hot as it normally would be here in the desert. Here is what that pot looks like today (I really need to divide some of this out and take some cuttings. I want to start playing with feeding and such and see what happens with them!)

Andrew
P4200206.JPG
 
  • #11
:clap: :cry: They grow up so fast!
Actually, they are normally notoriously slow growers (at least for me). However, the feeding (although a real pain) made a big difference in growth.

I miss my lettuces i.e. D. schizandras. They do exceedingly well in my conditions until the weather warms up in March. Then they rot within a day or two. My largest was 6" across. :cry:
6" across is pretty impressive. It's a shame you don't have a place to hide them from the heat.

They are actually much easier than expected as long as the temperature remains constantly cool.
Cool temps & high humidity are what works for me. However, if those conditions change for a while, they aren't too forgiving...

I need to try some of these in my highland greenhouse then o_O
Washington ftw. Ill have to see if a friend of mine here in WA has any success with em (once I'm back in WA)
As you can see from Jefforever's plants, they like conditions in the Northwest US.

So I put it on a shaded shelf, fairly close to the cooler and redirected a couple vents to blow in that direction. I wouldn't say it's quite HL conditions, but surely not as hot as it normally would be here in the desert.
Those look great Andrew - especially considering your exterior conditions are opposite what the plants like (hot/dry vs cool/humid). Getting them apart is probably a good idea. In addition to experimenting, if one decides to crash, it won't pull the others with it.

Here are a few more threads for anyone interested in more info on the 'lettuces':
- 2006 post w/ my original 'mother' plant & several comments on conditions
- excellent 2 page thread - although it was better before Barry removed his pics. :nono:
-------- schizzie pics that were originally in Barry's post
- general post

It's a great plant, we just need to get some more people growing it....:bigthumpup:
 
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  • #12
I just brought this plant back up from its summer basement 'exile' as we seem to be past the really hot summer weather for the year. While it's not uncommon to see a hole in a leaf where condensation may have been dripping ... and it's quite common to have babies emerging from roots of older plants ... However, this is the 1st time I've had a little alien apparently cause a hole (2 o'clock from plant center) ...
Dschizandraalien092509RS.jpg
 
  • #14
Nice! Australian dews are all cool.
 
  • #15
Are the notches any more developed now?
 
  • #16
nice....always wondered if this one would do well for me.....cant grow adelae to save my life but prolifera loves me.....
 
  • #17
Having recently acquired a shizzy, Ive been doing a little reading...

Distribution and Habitat
Drosera schizandra is endemic to Bellenden Ker-Mount Bartle Frere area in Queensland and is conserved within the Wooroonooran National Park. This species occurs in shady sites along creek banks bordering complex vine forests and growing on wet red sandy soil or granite (Marchant & George, 1982; BRI collection records, n.d.). This species occurs within the Wet Tropics (Queensland) Natural Resource Management Region.

Approved Conservation Advice (s266B of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999)
Approved Conservation Advice for Drosera schizandra
This Conservation Advice was approved by the Minister / Delegate of the Minister on:
16/12/2008

These are the highest peaks in Queensland, and hold the record for rainfall.

After looking up the geology of the region, it would seem (just an assumption) that highland conditions combined with a sandy substrate containing some iron (laterite maybe???) might be worth a try...

Av
 
  • #18
Are the notches any more developed now?
Nope. They're barely visible on a leaf or 2, but in general, the plant just held it's own during the summer hiatus (which is much better than 'normal' summer activity...). With some feeding, I'm hoping to coax a bloom out of it this year ... :crazy:
nice....always wondered if this one would do well for me.....cant grow adelae to save my life but prolifera loves me.....
This is odd - at least for me. The 3 sisters are on a continuum of growing difficulty / range of acceptable conditions - again - this is for me. Others have had success with different conditions.

- D. adelae is typically a weed - will grow well if given some humidity. Media doesn't matter (much).
- D. prolifera won't grow well in my office terrarium (where adelae does fine) but is a weed where the schizzies are sometimes comfortable. Media doesn't seem to matter much. (Later edit: set loose in the live LFS at the bottom of my office tank, D. prolifera has thrived - although it does even better in my cool basement in live LFS)
- D. schizandra in my care requires very high humidity & only grows well in 100% live LFS (peat mixes killed them & growth was retarded with dead LFS). Also, it seems to not handle higher temps as well as the other two.

Based on my experiences (& some comments from others), I figured that although all 3 sisters grow in similar conditions - D. adelae grew at lower elevations, D. schizandra at the highest elevations & D. prolifera in between the two.

This poorly-supported theory was destroyed recently when Greg Bourke posted some in-situ pics of all 3 sisters on the VCPS listserver & I followed up with a question about their elevations. This was the response I received:
D. prolifera 200m asl. D. schizandra 400 – 650m asl (we now have 3 sites for this species) and D. adelae 400m asl. (quote used with permission)
Based on this information, there does not appear to be a clear delineation based on elevation... In general, they also grow much lower than I anticipated - given their latitude.
 
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  • #19
Wow I don't know how I missed this before- Ron, that schizzy in your first pic is amazing.
This is a great resource.
 
  • #20
Here's a baby schizzy:

Picture004-6.jpg
 
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