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Next on Springer: "My Nepenthes is a TRANNY!"

  • #21
Well, Paul, Asia -- particularly Thailand -- has always been a destination for those who would care for that radical surgical approach; so is it any wonder that your newly found sequential hermaphrodite comes from the Pacific Rim?
 
  • #22
Well, Paul, Asia -- particularly Thailand -- has always been a destination for those who would care for that radical surgical approach; so is it any wonder that your newly found sequential hermaphrodite comes from the Pacific Rim?

Gentlemen, you are cracking me up...

My only experience has been with N. 'Isle de France' -- plant is labeled male, but it produced a bunch of female flowers this past year. It could be an error on the label, I suppose. The pitchers are spot on for the cultivar.
 
  • #23
David, I suspect this phenomenon has nothing to do with it being a tissue cultured plant - I expect this is something some individuals can do as part of their natural reproductive process. Just think how easy it would be to miss this phenomenon in wild populations!

Or or maybe some individuals* - once they reach a certain age - can afford the resources to manufacture seeds (an expensive proposition for any plant; they have to have the resources available to make seeds or the plant can die from the effort) and so they can switch gender once they feel able to make seed, which is surely an asset in terms of increasing species survivability. With an average of 7 males to every 3 females in most species found in situ, adding a few more females to the equation - especially healthy, robust adults that can afford to make copious seed - would be a real asset, wouldn't you think? So . . do you happen to know if your friends hamata was an older, fully established adult plant or not?

The reason that I had mentioned tissue culture, was that there was some talk that somaclonal variation could play some role in sexual expression; though I have never witnessed it.

In answer to your question, Paul, my friend's plant was an older adult, which had flowered a number of times, as a male. Now it has become moody and capricious, heh, heh, heh . . .
 
  • #24
Wow the gender fluidity movement is really catching on, even in Nepenthes.
 
  • #25
This definitely warrants further study. It would not surprise me one bit if plants of only one gender in relatively close proximity to each other could use pheromones or some other stimulus to signal one or more of the plants to change genders. Perhaps a survival mechanism to help populations survive events that would wipe out a large part of a particular population, such as fires or floods.
 
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