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Flowering

Do flowers from sundews affect them like they do with the Venus Fly Traps? Should I cut these off too so the plant gets larger? Or are they fine to leave on there. Thanks.

- Joel
 
From what I have read, the effects aren't nearly as bad as with VFT's. Enjoy the flowers!
 
I did notice that on my d. x marsten dragon (now this may be a bit excessive) after 12 flower stalks, the plant would only 't' its leaves. (for lack of a better word) The plant's growth also got 'shorter' if you will. I haven't let it flower in over a month, and it still is slow growing, showing about half of it's potential. In contrast, the d. capensis, typical, narrow leave, and albino, have shown little to no stress. This is not to say that some plants won't show a slow down in growth. I have about 200 d. capensis and I just got tired of them flowering, so I am cutting new flowers off. I prefer the plant to really put its effort into growth over flowers. Plus, I'll have over a thousand seeds after only about 10 flowers. Good luck.
 
Yes, the effects are not as close to that on VFTs. SOme even flower repeatedly (like my capillaris/intermidia?) is doing right now - only 1cm across and already 6 flower stalk?!? Hooooo Mama!
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BTW, what are the differences between a capillaris and a intermidia? It seems like a virus is being passed around here - a virus of 'unknown identity' of cps!
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I mean in terms of leaf shape, size, layout etc.

Jason
 
Tamlin your worst taxonomic nightmare huh, don't blame me, it was my bro...
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My flower stalks grow like crazy! It's cool to see how much they actually grow each day.

I have heard Spathulata and Spatulata.......are they the same? I just got two sundews spathulata (or spatulata) and rotundafolia. They sure are neat plants. I hope they do well!
 
Drosera spatulata
Nepenthe spathulata

These two are always getting mixed up.  I asked the same question way back when I first started
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!
 
I guess telling the difference between D. spatulata and Drosera spathulata is sort of a CP rite of passage. It is D. spatulata, not D. spathulata. This all depends on the original author who used D. spatulata for the Drosera species, and the author of Nepenthes spathulata who included the "h". Both are correct Latin terms, but the First Word by an author, or Protolouge as they are called is what determines the spelling for all time.

Most Drosera remain largely unaffected by flowering. I have sometimes wished that my D. spatulata would flower themselves to death, lol. No, just kidding. I love them too!

Other species do prove to be more sensitive. I don't allow many of my South African species to continually flower, they often exhaust themselves if I do and it takes months for them to recover. So , once I have the insurance seed I need to keep the species going should I lose it, I generally nip the other scapes, leaving an occasional scape so I can appreciate the flowers.

I let all my D. binata flower. They are hedges now that are totally unaffected by flowering, most in gallon sized pots. The flowers are very pretty. I also let my Dionaea flower, and I have never lost any plants in doing so, although they do need some recovery time to return to their full growth.
 
  • #11
Ok,

Thanks! I'll head down the basement and do it right now! :)
 
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