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Hybridizing (?)

  • #21
Nepenthes definitely exhibit hybrid vigor. It seems the strongest, easiest growers are hybrids between a lowland x highland. N. Mixta is the perfect example: maxima x northiana. Its been around for more than 100 years and grows vigorously in both lowland and highland conditions.
I would like to see more breeding along lines that emphasize certain shapes and colors, say echinostoma x ramispina, or rafflesiana x burbidgea.

Trent
 
  • #22
Just along the lines of the aristolochioides x thorelli hybrid... They look a lot more like an aristo with the coming of upper pitchers... Take a look at mine! I also have a ventricosa x talangensis, it's pretty cool!
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  • #23
How big do plants have to be to flower?
 
  • #24
[b said:
Quote[/b] (HellzDungeon @ June 14 2004,9:04)]hmmm... so if u put seed parent first, then lets say u cross a guy lowii and a girl hamata, and then a boy seedling pollinated a girl Bical, would it be like :
[(Hamata x Lowii) Bicalcurata]
i would want to see such a hybrid, it would be so cool to see these all put together...
With hybrids with bicalcarata in it, you tend to not see any bical. Bicals dont really show in hybrids. you probably wouldn't get any fangs at all

(Lets see who beats me to correcting me, tony or trent)
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  • #25
awww, the fangs are the best part! lol
 
  • #27
Spectabilis 73 is right. Hybrids with bical. do not have fangs. Apparently, the fangs are a recessive trait. We have seedlings of bicalcarata x northiana, and the spot where the lid joins the peristome is very similar to what we see in rafflesiana x bicalcarata or N. xCantleyi-a nub or protrusion, but nothing at all like a pair of fangs.
As for how big to flower-you need a nice long vine well into the upper trap mode. There may be exceptions, but its never happened for us.

Trent
 
  • #28
If you get a male to flower before a female you can shake the flower stalk when it has open flowers onto a piece of tin foil and then fold this up into a packet and put it in the freezer and it will remain viable for a couple of months:)
 
  • #29
I wonder if you crossed a male and a female of a cross with N.bicalcurata together if fangs would show up in like say 25% of the offspring? Cause I think thats the way genetics work,when you cross a plant with a recesive gene(fangs) ,wich in this case would be f, with a plant with a coresponding dominant gene(fanglessness) ,wich would be F, you get offspring that all have the dominant(fangless) phenotype wich means they so the dominant trait,BUT they carry the recesive traitand so would have the genotype Ff Then if you cross 2 hybrid seedlings you get 25% plants with the pure dominant trait all F,25% with the pure recesive trait all f,and 50% with a dominant phenotype and a recesive gene as well Ff.:)
 
  • #30
Woooh had to read that one a couple times to understand lol but as far as genetics go that sounds right (at least according to my psy. teachers lessons lol)

Maybe you found a solution to the problem!!
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  • #31
Good question. I'm sure such a bicalcarata hybrid will be made one day and we'll know....

Trent
 
  • #32
Assuming that the peristome is controlled by a single gene on a single chromosome that would be the case. Genetics unfortunately usually isn't so cut and dry with a complex structure such as the peristome. I would have to do some searching but I am sure there are hybrids already with plants involving N. bicalcarata that are then backcrossed to N. bicalcarata. I don't recall any of these more complex hybrids showing fangs either.
For example N. bicalcarata x (bicalcarata x rafflesiana) (not sure if it is a real hybrid but was just using as an example of a backcross where a hybrid is then crossed back to one of the parents.
Tony
 
  • #33
I got a question:
Is there already a hybrid involving veitchii, northiana, and spathulata?

Joe
 
  • #34
Why do you suppse they developed fangs? I don't see any real purpose for them.
 
  • #35
I think they secreet (SP?) nectar.

Joe
 
  • #36
Oh lol ya know, that would make a cool picture....the fangs dripping with nectar.
 
  • #37
I'd say that the fangs are part of a mechanism that helps keep larger bugs in. Or birds out, or some such thing. They may have been more pronounced in the past and are now a genetic relic, or they may actually still help. Who knows?

Capslock
 
  • #38
Yeah, I assumed that they were meant to keep larger critters in as when the jumped the fangs would get in the way. I think it would also allow ants and whatnot to fall into the pitcher via a highdive.
 
  • #39
The fangs on bicalcarata do secrete a honey-like substance that attracts ants. Some friends saw bicalcarata in its natural habitat in Mulu Nat'l Park and observed ants foraging out to the fang tips, losing their footing, and falling into the pitcher. The fangs are posed directly over the pool of fluid in the pitcher.

That great Nepenthes nursery in Australia has a female spathulata and several clones of veitchii x northiana. I'm sure they've made hybrids involving all three species.

Tony, I believe bical x (bical x raff) has been made, and it looks exactly like what you would expect.

Trent
 
  • #40
The largest bicac in our colection is in the public CP house. Nectar droplets regularly form on all the bicalcs here, but the big hog in the CP house has regular visits from ants. On the tip of each fang is a nectar gland and this is the very favorite spot for the ants to visit.

bicalc_ants1.jpg


The ants I have here are most active at night, and when I unlock in the morning you can watch them jocky for possition on the ends of bicalc fangs. Of course, if anyone looses thier footing, it's into the soup!

bicalc_ants2.jpg


I love watching them.

Steve
 
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