Ugh...I often have a problem with the dreaded guk(or guck, what I like to call it). If it becomes a real menace, I just scrape it off with a spoon and replace with fresh peat when I have the time.
I use ED on lots of plants:
Dionaea
Drosera
Nepenthes
Pinguicula
carefully on Utricularia
on Staghorn Ferns!
Bromeliads
my orchids
and on a plant I've been looking for a chance to talk about for days--I think it is called a "Buddabelly". It's one of the weirdest plants I grow. It sends out a large taproot that looks like a huge, woody bulb. The leaves resemble comparatively gigantic four-leaf clovers . The flowers are also bizarre, they come up on stalks similar to leaf stalks and are an eye-catching red-orange color. The seed pods are the weirdest of all--after months of slowly swelling, they finally literally EXPLODE! I'm not kidding, the seed pod on my one plant in the dining room exploded while I was reading. One of the seeds whizzed past my ear and panged against a window--eight feet away from the plant. I found two more seed, and I know there was a fourth judging by the size of the pod before it exploded, but I haven't found it. The three seed are now in the fridge. They are larger than sunflower seeds, rounder, thicker, and lightly colored. I'm currently strategizing how to go about germinating them.
I bought the plant from a local nursery. It is very rootbound in an 8 inch pot. From the soil surface, the whole plant(including the three flower stalks, one of which held the exploding pod) is about 16 inches tall. I'm currently trying to self pollinate it, so that I'll have more seed as well as the entertainment of an exploding seed pod. The exploding pod is obviously its method of spreading seed in the wild. I'm told(by the owner of the nursery I bought it from)it is a jungle plant, enjoying semi-shade, moist soil, high temps and humidity. I'm trying to provide it with those conditions, and it is doing very(surprisingly)well. If ANY of you have EVER heard of OR grown this plant, please let me know. If the seed does germinate, I estimate(judging upon the woody stem, large leaves, and advanced root system of my single plant)it would take at least five years to grow a plant to one the size of mine. If I had more seed, I'd certainly offer some to Petflytrap! But until I have more than three... Remember now, it's called a "Buddabelly"!
Chris
(Edited by Dionaea Enthusiast at 1:14 pm on Dec. 11, 2001)