More little things…..

Here are the rest of the family….

This is the batch of pygmies grown from gemmae, thanks to a kind forumer way back in 2007.  On sowing, there were two species, Drosera roseana and Drosera nitidula x pulchella. Initial guesses were that those germinated were actually all D.nitidula x pulchella. Grown under energy saving daylight bulbs, the resulting growth was anything but green, although one plant looked slightly different than the rest of its ‘siblings’. The plants were later moved to a larger tank, and soon became flushed with red. It was only then that I could confirm the existence of one lone D.nitidula x pulchella and nine D.roseanas.

I love this batch of Drosera scorpiodes, grown from gemmae courtesy of another forumer. The entire germination process to current growth state took approximately 3 weeks, after which growth slows down and the plant stem starts to slowly elongate as new petioles develop. They seem to look like strange antennaes of extraterrestrial plant life, another inspiring lookalike of the plant life in Avatar. If one were to shine an Exoterra lamp shade over the plant and after a while switch it off, the resulting green glow from the phosphorus coating of the inner surface of the lamp shade would reflect on the dews, which sparkle as if they were actually bioluminescent.

This batch of Drosera adelae was grown from root cuttings taken from an ailing mother plant, now deceased. At the beginning of 2009, the bits of black fibrous roots were excised and stuffed into the spongy sphagnum for 3 months before new growth could be seen.

Here I have used a porcelain dish, light glazed on the inside, without any drainage holes, and filled it to the top with sphagnum and some form of unknown moss species purchased from a local plant vendor. The dish contains Drosera spathulata, Drosera burmanii, Drosera tokaiensis and Eriocaulon. Let’s hope the water table is actually ideal for the growth of these particular chaps!

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