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Nepenthes clipeata clones

In 1998, I purchased a Nepenthes clipeata from Jerry Fischer at Orchids Limited. This plant has grown well, if rather deliberately over the past years, but has yet to flower.

In 2000, I purchased two N. clipeata clones from Andreas Wistuba at the Nepenthes Nursery, partly in order to compare these plants which are "bona fide" N. clipeata, with my original specimen.

It is now clear that the Orchids Limited plant is almost identical to the German TC plants, although the point of insertion of the tendril is a bit further towards the distal end of the leaf, and the leaves are not as orbicular as the "roundest" of the other two. Pitchers are dead-ringers amongst the three, which is not surprising given the fact that captive plants derive from a small gene pool.

I have heard a lot of claims that plants in the U.S. are of hybrid origin - yet this plant, putatively from John de Kanel's facilities is, IMO, remarkably similar to Wistuba's clones and shows no hybrid characters.

Any thoughts? And at what stage do these wretched things start flowering?

 
I suggest reading this thread. I am not going to go into alot of detail since there have been several discussions on it in the past. Suffice it to say the plants from John which OL has been selling (among others) are not pure N. clipeata. They are a cross of N. clipeata x (clipeata x eymae) There are differences although sometimes hard to see between this plant and pure N. clipeata. Here is the thread: N. clip-1

Tony
 
Mr. Paroubek:

Thank you very much for pointing out this very informative discussion of the putative geneologies of these critters. I am, however, still confused. While one would expect an F2 cross involving N clipeata thrice would exhibit most (all?) of the key characters that "define" the sp., I am still at a loss as to what separates my OL plant from the Wistuba clones. The plant that it most resembles is the juvenile on Joachim Danz's website. In spite of several years forward momentum, the plant does indeed hang, rather than climb. Pitchers are bulbous below the waist and show little ontological variation, barring the loss of wings on last years pitchers.

Is it possible that there are other breeding lines involved in the older de Kanel/OL plants? Are they all the same sex?

Brgds,

SJ
 
I understand that there are a few natural hybrids with clipeata up there on Kelam, one of them being with reinwardtiana. How "pure" could any group or population be, considering clipeata only grows on one hill that it shares with a few other species. I have never heard any detailed accounts of this from anyone who has actually observed the different populations. I wonder how much variation exists within N. clipeata.

Trent
 
Interesting questions..
Trent - I would expect natural hybrids to be fairly obvious even if they are several generations removed from the interloping species.  Species tend to be quite uniform within a single population.  The difference we see in variable species occurs when comparing different populations from different areas that are evolving differently.  I don't have alot of experience with N. clipeata but comparing the clip-1 plant with the published description was enough to tell me something wasn't quite right... and were are dealing here with a plant that has a different species as one grandparent.

StoneJaguar - yes I would expect a cross such as N. clipeata x (clipeata x eymae) to very closely exhibit the characteristics of pure N. clipeata but there are still differences which do not conform to the species description.  Which is why these plants have always looked pretty darn close but not quite right to me.  For example.  The leaves are never orbicular and the tendril is never inserted in the middle of the leaf.  The internode spacing is longer than it should be.  The bulbous bottom section of the pitchers are elongated vertically and the constriction above this section is widened out.  The lid is too high above the pitcher opening and the angle of the pitcher opening is too steep.  It also seems to change alot.. one pitcher can be very N. clipeata looking while the next one is noticeably different.
Tony
btw the clip-1 are male.  They usually flower late Winter/early Spring for me.
 
OK - I'm sold on the hybrid hypothesis.

On a slightly different tack, these plants seem far enough down the line to warrant continued intracrossing to beef up the gene pool, don't you think? I'm not sure what the breeders "rule" is, but with a specific case with cycad (specifically, Encephalartos woodii x (E. woodii x E. natalensis)) select, serial backcrossing, F5+ offspring are to be considered "pure". This would allow us to add another genetic line without having to collect additional wild plants, or incorporate MORE plants of uncertain origin into the breeding program.

Cheerio,

SJ
 
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