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Post by John Brittnacher on Mar 22, 2013 1:18:56 GMT
This is a plant I have had for 10 years, it never gets taller than 6 cm, and has survived a lot of punishment. The pitchers have a drainage hole. I received it as an unknown species or hybrid. I think it is Heliamphora heterodoxa but am not sure. Are there H. heterodoxa clones that stay this small? Are there other candidates?
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Post by Dave Evans on Mar 22, 2013 1:25:31 GMT
It reminds me of H. minor...
I don't recognize this clone. I have a photographic memory and this draws a blank.
H. heterodoxa * (H. heterodoxa * H. minor)?
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Post by av8tor1 on Mar 22, 2013 13:46:31 GMT
H. heterodoxa typically has a more "conquistador-ish" looking nectar spoon when exposed to good lighting. Under those conditions it usually has a pronounced edge flaring and central rib to the spoon. But there is a whole group of "heterodoxa-ish" species... H. collina (formerly H. sp "Foothills Tostigos" (usually develop a soft yellow-green color with red edges in good lighting) H. sp. Angasima (stunning coloration in good lighting) H. sp. "Akopan" (usually has a distinctive longer "neck" region") H. purpurascens (formerly considered H. heterodoxa Ptari Tepui) Seems like there is one more that I can't think of at the moment.... Depending on conditions, this group can be hard to distinguish from one another. IMHO this is one reason why we still lack a good Heliamphora key. About half the species have traits that are easy to identify regardless of conditions, the other half not so easy. I have plants that have glabrous, pubescent and waxy pitchers all on the same plant. I can grow them a whole lot better than I can identify them ;D Not much help I know, and of course a hybrid is very possible if not likely just my 2 cents, maybe someone else can chime in
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Post by amphirion on Mar 23, 2013 0:04:28 GMT
i am curious, John, where is the origin of your plant? a couple of confounding factors come into play... 1) heterodoxa, nutans, and minor have been in cultivation since heliamphora have been introduced. because of their slow propagation and their flowering habits, the creation of hybrids are much easier to make than species. it wouldnt surprise me if your plant, as suggested by Dave and Av8tor1, is an introgressed hybrid.
2) taxonomic ambiguity plagued heliamphora for quite awhile until recently... a heterodoxa plant 20-25 years ago could have actually been a collina, glabra, or purpurescens, but those species werent recognized as species yet. i know av8tor has a plant in his collection identified as heterodoxa x minor, but any heliamphile would recognize purpurescens or sarracenioides influence in the plant. i only bring this up because the nectar spoons look very similar to H. collina, part of the "heterodoxa complex".
my best guess is that this plant comes from a series of crosses between cultivated plants and hybrids (heterodoxa, nutans, minor, and hybrids of). the nectar spoon definitely has heterodoxa influence. this occurrence is not unlike hybrid introgression found in Sarracenia. under similar circumstances, i also suspect that the H. minor "robust clone" is actually a minor x heterodoxa introgression as its nectar spoons look nothing like the recent/newer minor clones in circulation.
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Post by John Brittnacher on Mar 24, 2013 2:26:20 GMT
i am curious, John, where is the origin of your plant? I have the plant because the origin is unknown and it is a tiny, "uninteresting" plant for public display purposes. It was dumped in favor of the new TC clones. Never mind it makes a nice terrarium specimen once I figured out what it wanted in order to grow--it didn't grow much until I started soil fertilizing it. The plant is old enough it is most likely seed grown from the "classic species". I had always thought it was something like a H. heterodoxa x minor. But looking on Photofinder the pitchers aren't right for an F1 and it is smaller than the H. minor I have under the same growing conditions. Now I am leaning to a runty H. heterodoxa or H. heterdoxa-group. However to the extent complex hybrids were common before all the TC plants became available it could be a one of those. I suppose a problem with all of us now growing mostly the same selected Heliamphora clones is you lose track of the natural variability in a species. For instance I find that to get a "decent" Sarracenia clone I have to grow hundreds of plants from seed. In the good old days of grow your own Heliamphora from seed who knows what was considered good enough.
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kby
Full Member
Posts: 162
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Post by kby on Mar 27, 2013 1:42:57 GMT
What kind of light does it get? This usually influences color (although not the only factor especially in cultivation). It doesn't look etiolated, so it looks like it has at least a reasonable amount of light. How about water? McPherson does mention plants dwarfed by lack of water. 'Course there's always the issue that too much water is often a problem in cultivation, so at least I tend to err on the dry side.
6cm is pretty small; even H. minor and H. pulchella max out bigger than that so something isn't completely right. Also, since you said it has a drainage hole, it can't be pure minor or pulchella.
It looks too red and too well-formed and with a larger nectar spoon than H. collina. That's comparing to in-the-wild pictures, but one would normally expect the trend to be the other way if there was a difference due to that.
I would argue that its survival through a lot of punishment argues for a hybrid. I have one hybrid that has survived over a decade whereas in the same time frame many species have come and gone. It actually looks like that, but it's much larger (hetero x ionassii) so I'm pretty sure it isn't that.
How about the Yuruani H. nutans? McPherson, unfortunately, doesn't give anything to figure a size (just that it's shorter and stouter than typical H. nutans; none of the pictures have anything that can even semi-reliably used to scale the pitcher size).
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Post by John Brittnacher on Mar 27, 2013 4:57:14 GMT
I use 3000K T5-HO bulbs. They make the plants redder and a little shorter than 6500K bulbs. But I don't think that is much of a factor. This is a Heliamphora heterodoxa x nutans growing in the same size pot under the same conditions. It is 13 cm tall and I don't know if it has maxed out yet. The plant always sits in a few mm of water. However the soil is at least 50% sand and the rest LF Sphagnum. I think I now know the ultimate source of the plant but have not been able to contact him yet. He studied Heliamphora in Venezuela around 1990. The plant was in existence before 1996.
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Post by Dave Evans on May 1, 2013 2:47:20 GMT
A selfed and therefore inbred H. heterodoxa?
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Post by pitcher on Feb 7, 2015 1:15:06 GMT
Hello, I am new to the forums.
Just out of curiosity, does this species of Heliamphora produce it's own digestive enzyme?
I'm aware that, as far as carnivory is concerned, the Heliamphora genus in general doesn't produce its own, with the exception of mostly H. Tatei, and is dependent on symbiotic monerans to break down their food for them. If this genus is no different, is there another that is like Tatei in that regard?
Thanks.
~AC~
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Post by Dave Evans on Feb 10, 2015 0:03:23 GMT
Pretty sure they all make digestive enzymes, but the testing is non-consistent. I'm rather unclear how one species of a genus make digestive enzymes, but not the next when they all have the same carnivorous plant ancestor species.
This is copied from Wiki and it is very unlogical: "Species in the genus Heliamphora are carnivorous plants that consist of a modified leaf form that is fused into a tubular shape. They have evolved mechanisms to avoid completely filling up with water and attract, trap, and kill insects. At least one species (H. tatei) produces its own proteolytic enzymes that allows it to digest its prey without the help of symbiotic bacteria."
Okay, first how does having proteolytic enzymes *prevent* a plant from getting help from symbiotic bacteria??? Why are these kinds of statements about carnivorous plants nearly always framed with such stilted language?
If anything, in order to be a successful carvivorous plant, the species would have to have learned long ago how to manage the bacteria(s) and other protists trying to steal their dinners! I would say managing the bacteria is at least as important as producing enzymes.
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Post by hcarlton on Feb 10, 2015 1:47:28 GMT
No records yet exist of the other species producing enzymes. Yes, this does not mean that they don't produce them and we may be using the wrong tests, or improper methods for this genus somehow, but until then we cannot just assume they all do. Byblis is another genus where we know some species produce enzymes and others do not, and out of the bromeliad genus Brocchinia, only two species are known to produce enzymes, and the rest are not even considered carnivorous by any real extent. Being descended from the same ancestor doesn't mean they all have the same mechanisms. H. tatei very well could be the only species, and came to produce enzymes at a later point. One species using them does NOT ever mean the ancestral form did as well; this is simply not how evolution, adaptation, or whatever you wish to call it works. And of course the enzymes don't prevent bacteria from doing part of the job. Bacteria and Archaea colonize every habitat on the planet, and will always do part of the job, and the plant will still benefit even if it produces a whole suite of enzymes like some Nepenthes and Sarracenia species do.
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Post by Dave Evans on Feb 10, 2015 4:42:26 GMT
Actually, I would think as the tepuis continue to become more and more remote from the rest of Earth, the need to be carnivorous would decline and if anything species would give up on being carnivorous for just collecting nutrients in general, i.e. dustivorous.
No, the pattern simply doesn't fit. With all the other adaptions for carnivory already in place it only makes sense for the currently existing species to have all been descent from a fully functionally carnivorous species. I know "proof", like a recording cannot be demonstrated, but logic pretty much demands we consider current Heliamphora that do not produce proteolytic enzymes as having lost the ability at some point.
I believe all species of Byblis also make enzymes for the same reasons. If they have stopped making the proteolytic enzymes, there is other ecological reason for it. I suspect Byblis only active their digestion system during the night.
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Post by pitcher on Feb 11, 2015 7:37:01 GMT
No records yet exist of the other species producing enzymes. Yes, this does not mean that they don't produce them and we may be using the wrong tests, or improper methods for this genus somehow, but until then we cannot just assume they all do... How exactly was Tatei confirmed? As far as everything else, I quite agree. I was going to say, our ancestors breathed not oxygen but, amoung their vital gases, cyanide and methane. Doesn't mean we will. No, we breath the deadly poison, oxygen, which was so poisonous as to smite 98% of living things off the face of the Earth; our ancestors were simply the lucky bastards who managed to survive such atrocious gas. Just a thought.
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