Heliamphora stolons

[kby]

Quoting from the FAQ:

By the way, such underground stolons are not known to be produced by any other species in the Sarraceniaceae, although this is a trick that some species of Heliamphora may be hiding from us.

Is this still in question(for Heliamphora), or is it pretty well documented (my H. hetrodoxa shows this although not on a regular basis; no other Helis I have do yet;
it is the oldest and largest).-kby

[wadave]

Funny you should mention this but I noticed something that looked suspiciously stolon like in growth habit in my H. pulchella the other day.

I noticed a few juvenile traps developing a small distance away from the main clump of mature traps and thought to myself if heliamphoras could possibly grow stolons.





You can see that these little guys are growing some distance from the rest of the clump. What do you guys think...... stolon or something different?


I have noticed that all my heli's grow juvenile traps on the outside edges of the mature clump but they were never any distance away from the main plant.

Dave.

[kby]

Dave,
That is how mine developed (and I've got a new one coming up!). I found it was a stolon when I wanted to donate one of the clumps (one crown) actually--I'd had two "remote" crowns one of which was now sending mature pitchers; the toher which still had juveniles. When I dug around the one with matures, it was attached to this long thing running just under the surface of the soil. It was brown and looked pretty much like a dirty piece of twine, so I cut it and potted the plant up; then donated it in a couple of weeks later. In retrospect, I'm not sure how much it had in roots, but the pitcher that was developing on it (almost open) when I separated it continued to open normally over that couple of weeks, so I figured things had stabilized enough--would have preferred to wait longer but wanted to take care of it before I forgot about it.
At this point the large remote clump just crown divided and one of the crowns is finally going to mature pitchers, and I have one new little tiny one starting up.-kby

[BarryRice]

Hey Guys,

I'd be interested in hearing more. Mind you, a plantlet emerging from the ground, near the parent plant, is not smoking gun evidence of a stolon. Those underground rhizomes are full of dormant growth points, and for whatever reason, if one is activated, a shoot can appear at ground level.

There is a continuum between such shoots and a stolon, but a stolon is usually defined as a specialized, elongated, horizontal, underground stem. On Darlingtonia the stolons can be a meter long. I don't know of anything comparable in Heliamphora and would sure like to know about it if I am wrong!

[kby]

barryrice said:

Hey Guys,

I'd be interested in hearing more. Mind you, a plantlet emerging from the ground, near the parent plant, is not smoking gun evidence of a stolon. Those underground rhizomes are full of dormant growth points, and for whatever reason, if one is activated, a shoot can appear at ground level.

There is a continuum between such shoots and a stolon, but a stolon is usually defined as a specialized, elongated, horizontal, underground stem. On Darlingtonia the stolons can be a meter long. I don't know of anything comparable in Heliamphora and would sure like to know about it if I am wrong!

Hmmm, OK, I guess I'll need to do more reading and figure out which definition is best.

The best I can describe it for now is that there was a long strand--looked kind of like a piece of baling twine, but darker brown and kind of dried looking (not like most heliamphora roots look to me, which is usually fleshier). The cluster I detached which I donated appeared to be attached by about 6" of this structure to another "remote" cluster. It was also relatively flexible, again unlike most other parts of heliamphora which as we all know all too well are quite brittle.

Don't know if this helps but maybe it will prompt something to narrow down what to look for.-kby

[rsivertsen]

It's just another indication of how closely releated these plants are; aside from their floral and seedling similarities.