****** Update time ******
Last year I repotted many/most of my large utrics into netpots. As I suspected, I now have a love / hate relationship with them. Every plant that I stick in one (w/ live LFS) does better than previously and some are growing massively better.
Here's a plant that is enjoying the new neighborhood (suspected of being U. alpina x humboldtii):
.... but here's the rub - how the heck do you keep something like this away from the neighbors?
Here's a full pic:
In Jan, I mounted my U. jamesoniana on a treefern slab. It grew well for a while, then stopped and did noting for several months. When it looked like it was going to lose it's final remaining green leaf, it woke up and took off...
In May, I posted a quick preview pic of one of my U. asplundii flowers. They have been flowering non-stop since then and more open every day. I've done several pollination sessions and have offered seed
over here. In that post, I also mentioned that the two plants I'm growing have shown consistently different flowers (with U. nelumbifolia for comparison):
Here is a pic of the more vigorous plant growing in pure live LFS (it has the shorter lobes and lighter center section):
Close-up of a shorter lobe flower:
.... and a longer lobe one (plant in a mixed media):
Virtually all of the flowers on the plant with the darker flowers had long lobes that didn't unfurl evenly.
.... another short lobe flower:
... and another long lobe one:
Side-views:
... and views of flowers on the stems:
As you can see from the multiple pics, there are additional differences between the flowers (beyond what I've mentioned).
Here are a few U. nelumbifolia flower pics - the 1st pic was already posted in the macro pic thread:
This one was taken at the same time but didn't make the original cut (not the same flower as previous pic):
.... and a friend that found a warm spot under my new bank of T-5 lights: