VFT \'south west giant\'

[RICHARD UK]

I just bought one of these suckers of Mike King (thanks!)
and was just wondering what kinda size the mature plant gets? I have never really seen this plant in full growth and I havent seen any photo's.

 

[dave2150]

I'm not sure about what sort of size they get to, i've only had my S.W.Giant 10 days. But one thing i have noticed is that it grow MUCH faster than my other Vft's and the traps are a bit bigger than my others. They are not 4-5cm 'giant' traps yet though, mine has 5 traps about 3cm each. Another thing i have noticed is that the leaves are much thicker than my other plants, as if they are meant to support large traps.

Does anyone know if they grow more leaves than other Vft's ? Generally speaking there are up to 8 on Vft's, i was wondering if S.W.Giants can manage more than this, and how long it takes them to do this.

 

[Mike King]

Hi Richard,
The southwest giant traps get to nearly 2". What makes this particular clone special is the robustness of the teeth on the summer leaves. I will measure my specimen plants this year and find out which of the clones has the largest traps.

 

[RamPuppy]

Mike, do you know how the SW Giant was created? Is it a tissue culture freak? or was it bred to it's current traits?

 

[Alvin Meister]

It came about after a normal VFT, which was planted from seed, suddenly developed huge traps after a few years of normal growth. So in effect, it's a natural freak

 

[RamPuppy]

interesting... is it a recognized cultivar yet?

 

[Mike King]

Hi Alexis, Hi Rampuppy,
The SouthWest giant VFT was originally Adrian Slack's giant VFT he had way back in the 1970s. This plant was somewhere along the line acquired by a CP nursery (owned by a friend of mine) and he coined the name 'South West Giant' after his nursery. The large VFT Julie mentioned was one of her own giant trapped plants.

The South West giant in my experience puts its largest traps up til June and gradually the new ones decrease in size slightly later in the year. But it is consistant with that each year!

 

[RamPuppy]

cool!

 

[Mike King]

Hi Rampuppy,
It is not a recognized cultivar yet, but it is in numerous collections in the UK.

 

[larry]

Anybody here in the states have this vft?