What's new
TerraForums Venus Flytrap, Nepenthes, Drosera and more talk

Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

How Do You Keep A Beast Down?

Hiya All-

In this Wistuba page, about half way down, you see a young lady holding a fairly large bical pitcher. My question is, does that plant look about 20" tall and maybe 5-6ft in diameter?

I always thought, that a pitcher that large with a leaf span that wide would normally come from a plant that would be much taller/longer?

Or could it be that we are not able to see the entire plant on that pic and it IS probably from a taller/longer plant?

But to those who agree that it is from a shorter plant, can you explain how growers can keep a beast down and yet still produce large pitchers?

Or do we just grow 10ft young ladies . . . he, he, he .

http://www.wistuba.com/01b021931400a5f03....9304/index.html

Thanks to all who responds.

:banana2:
E
 
The literature I've seen describes Nepenthes growth in five phases. Phase one is seedlings; phase five is climbing, flowering, large adults. The details vary by species, but generally the intermediate phases have to do with the appearance of upper pitchers and vining habits. Transition between the phases seem to be accompanied by growth spurts and the production of new growth points, in my experience.
I've had several plants (chaniana x vietchii, eymae, truncata) that I had for months or years as small, slower-growing rosettes, which would suddenly put out a leaf two to three times the size of the previous one and then throw out a whole new set of huge leaves in the course of a season. To some degree, all of my plants seem to grow that way, except for some of the lowlanders that aren't as fond of my cool climate. N. bicalcurata, though, seems to also behave in this manner, even in my suboptimal conditions. My baby bical (from a TC batch) ballooned from the width of a quarter to the diameter of an orange over the course of a month or so.
~Joe
 
If anyone remembers a bunch of years ago The Tonight Show did a spotlight on a kid who grew CPs, the one he brought was a N. bical. That plant was only about 36" tall and maybe 24" in diameter and it had pitchers that were quite large and impressive. I also can second seedjar's claim of Nep ability to grow in size suddenly. It's happened with all of mine with the exception of my N. gracilis which only seems to grow suddenly in the up direction instead of the sideways one :p
 
Brassleaves from your description it sounds as if the kid might have had a cutting of a Bical vine. The leaves on mine started to decrease in length once it left the giant rosette plant stage and started climbing.

In a hot humid terrarium with 400w metal halide bical grows rapidly, Aprox 2-3 years from Wistuba's standard baby plant size to full fledged monstrosity. Once my bical hit 18" in diameter each new leaf was about 30% bigger than the previous one until it hit that magical monster size of 6 foot diameter but still was only a about 2 feet tall.

My N. rajah and N. truncata were the same way, growing huge across but not really getting taller until they got older and creating long internodes.

As far as keeping a vining Nep short the only way I can think of would be to chop it off and make cuttings of the top, what's left in the pot will probably send out new vines at the top of the stump but will also likely send up a basal rosette or two (or more) at soil level. These will be small rosette plants but not for too long, they will generally mature faster than the original rosette. Probably has something to do with the giant root system feeding a small plant. Once they start vining they're like a different sort of plant, harder to control., especially if you're lazy about trimming! :D
 
If Bicals are given good conditions they will become huge, quickly. If there were a way to keep mine smaller and still get huge pitchers, I wish someone would tell me.
 
Back
Top