The year before last I got two VFT for my birthday. One had large traps short petiols and bright red mouths, I called it Big Red. The second was very green all over, again had large traps and it's petiols were nearly 5 inches long! I called it Green and shortly after I had it, all of it's nice big leaves started falling off, replaced with tiney mutant leaves. Green was dieing and I didn't know why. I tried EVERYTHING, but by last spring it had succumed. I have held the burden of it's death ever since, unable to understand what was wronge with it. Now, at last I know why Green Died.
It turns out the componey that provided Green to the store where my parents baught it collects it's VFTs from the wild. They do this legally with permits and collect from sites which are going to be bulldozed. However, legal or not as most here likely already know, VFT's from the wild often have difficulty when placed in captivity. I now understand why my plant reacted so violently to my care, it was not my care in it'self, but rather my inablity to recreate the home it took root in and my ignorance of it's wild origens caused me to treat it like a tissue culture plant just out of propigation which clearly it was not. I share this information because I want to worn others. Those little red pots, without a providers name, with a white lable and black text that simply describe basic care... these are from the wild, the shock of being uprooted may trigger an immun dip and your plant may become ill from a pathogen already inhabiting it's flesh or it may simple not be able to adapt to a radical change in it's enviornment. Be forwarned of how delicate these wild plants are and refrain from taking them on unless you know how to treat a wild collected mature plant.
That being said, I have 3 wild VFTs that have done just fine, but none match the beauty they came to me with, I highly recomend wild collected plants, regardless of weather or not they were legally collected be avoided.
It turns out the componey that provided Green to the store where my parents baught it collects it's VFTs from the wild. They do this legally with permits and collect from sites which are going to be bulldozed. However, legal or not as most here likely already know, VFT's from the wild often have difficulty when placed in captivity. I now understand why my plant reacted so violently to my care, it was not my care in it'self, but rather my inablity to recreate the home it took root in and my ignorance of it's wild origens caused me to treat it like a tissue culture plant just out of propigation which clearly it was not. I share this information because I want to worn others. Those little red pots, without a providers name, with a white lable and black text that simply describe basic care... these are from the wild, the shock of being uprooted may trigger an immun dip and your plant may become ill from a pathogen already inhabiting it's flesh or it may simple not be able to adapt to a radical change in it's enviornment. Be forwarned of how delicate these wild plants are and refrain from taking them on unless you know how to treat a wild collected mature plant.
That being said, I have 3 wild VFTs that have done just fine, but none match the beauty they came to me with, I highly recomend wild collected plants, regardless of weather or not they were legally collected be avoided.
