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Post by magnum on Mar 28, 2007 14:30:00 GMT
I'll remove the plastic bag, but i don't think putting them outside is a good idea. Night temps around here are still below freezing on a regular basis.
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Post by BarryRice on Mar 28, 2007 15:05:03 GMT
Wonderful shots Sean. Nearly every leaf's got a fly. I've never even seen seed offered, it'd be nice to have a go at growing them. I recently got seed from the ICPS seed bank. It's germinating quite well. I believe it is still in stock. Barry
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Post by picrophyll on Mar 28, 2007 15:09:52 GMT
Barry Congrats at getting them away. Now starts the fun. Just to add salt to any wounds, D. glanduligera would be about the most common of the Drosera growing in all and any soil in any conditions, from Kalbarri in the north to Esperance in the south east and then again in the Eastern States. It has the label of being the hardest to germinate and grow. Lots of Luck Phill Phill
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Post by BarryRice on Mar 28, 2007 23:52:04 GMT
And how should it look in your neighborhood, oh, around late September 2007?
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Post by shartmeyer on Apr 18, 2007 8:42:20 GMT
Wonderful pictures Sean! I grow this species since 2002 only during the winter seasons using additional artificial light (400W) and was lucky enough to get a few of them flowering. Trying different conditions to obtain plants that are good enough to film their snapping tentacles for our DVD "Drosera: Snap-Tentacles And Runway Lights", Irmgard and I found out that this species needs to be fed to grow quick enough. Unfortunately most of the years we had no living spring-tails which are an ideal prey, so we fed crushed fish food-flocks applied with a tweezers with magnifier.
We used different peat/sand mix (no significant difference), tried out different temperatures within our cold-house (no heating only frost protection) and our Nepenthes-house (night temperature never below 12 degrees centigrade). Both temperature zones worked until the plants reached a diameter of about 1 cm, from now on a greater difference of day and night temperatures (at the cold-house) showed stronger plants living long enough to flower.
But no matter what soil and tested temperature: without any spring-tails or comparable prey, and without feeding all plants died soon and disappeared within a clump of grey-mould.
Sean's pictures from a natural site show that every leaf caught prey. So providing lots of protein (feed them weekly!) could be a way to achieve better plants. Certainly it has a good reason, that this species developed the fastest snap-tentacles of the genus that move as rapid as the Venus Flytrap. We measured the speed with our PAL-video-camera (25 pictures per second) directly compared with the VFT and measured 0.16 seconds to snap shut/snap in for both species.
We found that sensational (just like some CP-friends who observed the snapping before) and were more than only surprised that our article in "Das Taublatt" (2005/2) was the first publication describing, and our DVD the first movie showing the rapid movement to the public. Neither the description by Lehmann (1844), nor the Australians Rica Erickson (Plants of Prey) or Lowrie (CP of Australia Vol. 3) tell only one word about the tentacle movement, but describe it as a common red flowering sundew. Actually it is time now to collect more information on the species and I am looking forward to find more postings in this thread.
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Post by Sean Spence on Apr 19, 2007 3:54:17 GMT
I've never bothered to fertilize/feed my seedlings in the past which would explain my lack of success with the species.
Their apparent love for prey and their growth patterns when catching large amounts of prey seems to fit in with what I have noticed in the wild.
The seed seems to germinate in mid-winter and the small seedlings grow very slowly for the first few months. When in full growth in mid spring I've noticed that the main prey items are ants. In mid-winter ants are generally inactive and are seldom seen in most of the environments that D. glanduligera grows. In early spring, as the temperatures rise, the ants become active and are painfully common in many areas. It is at this time that the growth rate of the species seems to increase exponentially. Most plants seem to go from the small seedling size to large mature size within a few leaves and only a couple of weeks.
Something that I'd never really even considered. It all makes sense now.
When my seed of D. glanduligera germinates in the next few months I'll be sure to provide each leaf with an ant and see how the supplementary food benefits the plants.
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Post by nic on Apr 19, 2007 7:44:41 GMT
Hey Sean, Where around Melbourne can you find this species?
nic
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Post by shartmeyer on Apr 19, 2007 8:09:39 GMT
The unique snap mechanism of D. glanduligera is certainly a sophisticated method to catapult prey into the sticky center of the plant - and fix it immediately - that touches only the periphery of the leaves. Sean's observation that in the adult stage mainly ants are caught is really interesting and fits very well.
This active trapping within about 0.15 seconds does certainly increase the amount of prey very effectively, even if compared with the minimum 50-100 times slower moving bisymmetrical marginal tentacles of the probably closely related pygmy-droseras (i.e. D. ericksoniae needs about five seconds to bend in) or i.e. the prominent and often mentioned snap-tentacles of D. burmannii (8-15 seconds), which are also able to fix the prey effectively to the lamina, but do not directly catch it.
As our microscopic examination of meanwhile more than 100 Drosera species showed, only the marginal snap-tentacles of D. glanduligera develop a kind of junction at the divided tentacle stalk where the movement appears, obviously triggered if the also morphological unique tentacle head is touched. All other examined snap-tentacles in diverse Drosera sections move within about 5-120 seconds by the same mechanism as the usual glue-tentacles on the lamina - well investigated by Stephen Williams in the 1970s - by turgor movement.
Looking at my last posting above, I must add a fact that has been mentioned clearly within our articles and on the DVD, but could be missed and therefore missunderstood by readers which don't know our work. A first publication (as I know) on the rapid movement of D. glanduligera was published by the Australian Richard Davion in Flytrap News 1995 (Volume 8/4, journal of the former CPS of New South Wales). Quotation: "... the ribbon tentacles can move so fast that it may only be possible to determine the true speed via time-lapse photography." But obviously people did not know or ignored the article, did not believe it, or - as i.e. Fernando Rivadavia told me 2006 after viewing our DVD - knew the fact but thought everybody knows. Only when Richard 2002 posted us some of his video-shots from a natural growing site near his house I decided to examine that exactly and to add the story into our 1994 started - but due to another project - interrupted investigations on the world-wide appearing rapid moving marginal Drosera tentacles without glands.
So when I wrote above "our publication 2005 was the first", I should correct that it was the first article (and DVD) based on detailed microscopic examinations to show the snap mechanism, diverse exact speed measuments using a video camera with a strong macro, and three years of lows and highs to achieve more information on the unusual beasty cultivation of the species. Without any doubt several persons observed the snapping earlier, but did not publish closer information, and strange enough those mentioned authors who reported about the species in their books, did obviously not know about its snap trap. Oh, I should not forget, meanwhile Barry's "Growing Carnivorous Plants" has been released and the rapid movement of D. glanduligera is mentioned at page 37 and 90.
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Post by Sean Spence on Apr 19, 2007 9:09:10 GMT
Hi Nic,
I've found it growing in many places all around the suburbs. A few specific locations include the Cranbourne Botanical Gardens, Langwarrin Flora and Fauna Reserve, grasslands and roadsides between Melton and Geelong, The You Yangs Regional Park, Brisbane Ranges N.P, etc..... Most locations are to the west of the city but it will also be plentiful in sandy locations on the Mornington Peninsula.
The best examples that I've seen in Victoria have been at Anglesea and the Grampians N.P. Some good ones also found at Bendigo.
It is quite a common species and doesn't seem to favour any particular habitat or soil type.
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Post by BarryRice on Apr 30, 2007 22:47:22 GMT
Hey Folks,
Yes, it is true that I mention the catapult-tentacle behavior of D. glanduligera in my book, but I hasten to add that I learned about it from Siggi Hartmeyer and Richard Davion.
Barry
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Post by Dave Evans on Apr 30, 2007 23:52:15 GMT
Dear List,
D. burmanii and D. sessilifolia also have these quick moving, catapult traps.
All three of these species will decline quickly if they do not get to eat on a regular basis. Since D. glanduligera has the shortest growing season, it has to do more in less time and eating is the only way to collect the necessary components. Each leaf that doesn't trap something is wasted effort on the plant's part. It makes perfect sense that these species would develop a more aggressive trapping style, targeting crawling insects and other small crawlies.
Good Growing, Dave Evans
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Post by BarryRice on May 1, 2007 22:46:01 GMT
Hey Dave,
Well....I'll agree that D. burmannii and D. sessilifolia have very speedy marginal tentacles that bend 180 degrees in a few tens of seconds, but I don't quite think these quite qualify for the catapult trap name. The marginal tentacles of D. glanduligera are comparatively spring-loaded in action!
Barry
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Post by mattopel on May 2, 2007 13:37:56 GMT
I had one pathetic seedling of D. glanduligera hanging around the greenhouse, and decided to try some supplemental feeding after reading this thread. I just used fungus gnats or whatever little bugs I could scrape off of sticky cards or Roridula plants. That seems to have done the trick! It's more than doubled in size in the past few weeks. It's getting pretty late in the (N. hemisphere) season for winter annuals, though, and I hope it has a chance to make it to flowering size before the heat fries it.
-Matt O.
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Post by Sean Spence on May 2, 2007 13:48:39 GMT
I wouldn't really consider them to be winter growing annuals. They may germinate in winter but don't really get moving until well into spring. The best plants are usually found in October-November. They can handle plenty of heat, as long as they remain moist. Plants die back when the soil dries out.
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Post by mattopel on May 2, 2007 14:28:37 GMT
It's good to hear that they can take the heat, seanspence! I'll try to keep the plant going, and see what happens.
-Matt O.
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