Photos

[marcel]

Kudzu? Isn't that the stuff they tried in Maryland to keep the cliffs at the coast from crumbling? Nasty, weedy little creeper!

[Clint]

I think many years ago (like... MANY) they brought it over from Asia to stop erosion and maybe to feed cows, too. It supposedly enriched the soil aswell. It took off here in the south and overtakes power lines and kills trees.

The flowers make a great jam, though

Places like this are common.

library.thinkquest.org/03oct/00946/pic_used/kudzu.gif

[rsivertsen]

I absolutely agree with both of you, kudzu is a horribly invasive beast that swallows up entire trees, and kills almost everything. There are also Japanese climbing fern, (2 species I believe) that have gone feral. In many lakes and ponds here, I find the European Mirophyllium growing in large and dense mats and give the native Uticularia some problems, including the only site I know north of Florida that hosts a population of U. radiata.

In the six years that Aldrovanda has been growing in this site, it does not seem to be aggressive. It coexists with a few Utricularia that I also threw in there, and they seem to occupy different depths, and are active at different times, the Utrics come to flower in mid June, and then begin to die back, which is when the Aldrovanda begin to grow at it's best.

It occupies only the shallow areas, growing commingled with the marginal grasses, arrowheads, Phragmites, Typha, etc. I have tried several other small pond sites, on private property, some even had a small population of Utics and Drosera, but the Aldrovanda failed to thrive, and never came back after winter.

It grows in waters that become very warm to the touch, tepid, with temps well in the 90's(F); in fact, this is what prompts it to flower. They need to be in water that is above 90o(F) for a few weeks BEFORE the summer solstice (June 21), and then will flower in mid-July. The flower spikes are short, and solitary, and produce only two seeds each. I have seen some strands with three spikes.

They have an enormous rate of fatality for various reasons, but can recover even when reduced to just a few plants in proper conditions. I'm convinced that they are part of a complex symbiotic community, and can't survive well without it's constituent members, which involve close proximity to large monocot plants (whose roots give off CO2, and are heavy Nitrogen feeders), the zooplankton, which has the highest population density within these shallow margins, and the snails and copepods that also help feed on the algae that may attack the Aldrovanda. They also do better in waters that are not acidic, but actually neutral (pH=7.0) and the best strands seem to grow where there is a conspicuous presence of clay, which percolates up from underground springs. The pond water tests moderately hard. Once again, it’s the Biology of the water, and not the Chemistry.

Attempts to get sphagnum and D. rotundifolia and D. intermedia to grow in this site have all failed. Even the amphibious Utrics such as U. subulata, U. juncea, and U. cornuta failed to thrive; however, U. intermedia did also naturalize and grows well with Aldrovanda. The deeper areas of the pond contain U. vulgaris macro. U. inflata, and U. purpurea, which become cloaked with filamentous algae by the mid to end of the season, while the Aldrovanda remain completely free of any algae.

I have observed Aldrovanda not only survive out of water, but develops a terrestrial growth form resembling Lycopodium rhyzoids, and even manage to trap water and store within the collapsed wholes, which form tubes. Water condensation precipitates on the bristle hairs as morning dew, and is pulled in by capillary action. Amazing plants indeed!

As the pond begins to dry out, and they wind up growing in a thin film of water, or in a slurry of detritus, many Aldrovanda begin to anchor in the lose slurry, and begin to grow vertically, with very compact nodes, forming small rosettes, resembling small VFTs.

I’ll post some photos of this later on.

[Clint]

I've received flowering plants before from a man who grows them in an aquarium. I guess it's about 78-80 degrees. Then again it was an Australian form.

Oh the wait is agonizing! I can't wait to see these.

[rsivertsen]

Yes, that's true, the red Australian forms will flower in aquariums; the larger green forms, like the Japanese strain are neary impossible in containers.

[matti]

My friend grows hundreds of them in his aquerium and he uses a heater to make them flower, my waters got to about 37c max this summer and still no flowers... I think they might when it cools off abit.

[rsivertsen]

It's not jut the temperature alone, but WHEN, and if it gets above 90(F) or 37(C), (which is about 100F), BEFORE your summer solstice, they should produce flowers within 6 weeks, provided they also have an abundance of food; the population density of the zooplankton is also a factor, and in these very warm conditions, respiration is also increased, which results in a higher CO2 which the Aldrovanda uses for photosynthesis.

All these things combined, also with close proximity to the roots of large monocot plants to absorb the excess Nitrogenous matter, to keep the algae under control, are part of the complex symbiotic relationships that Aldrovanda occupy, and can’t live well without.

Perhaps you might find a way to have some monocot plants growing with your Aldrovanda, even when the Aldrovanda grow right in with the bare roots, and see if it helps. There has been speculation that they may release some stimulant that makes Aldrovanda grow more robust, but I believe it’s simply the extra CO2 combined with the heavy Nitrogen feeders that monocots are that does the trick. Look at the lawn fertilizers, the N-P-K values show the Nitrogen in double digits, (generally 35) while Phosphorous and Potassium are in the low single digits, and this is just for small grass plants, imagine what large stands of Phragmites, Typha, Carex and other large amphibious grasses may need, absorb and assimilate?!

[matti]

rsivertsen said:

It's not jut the temperature alone, but WHEN, and if it gets above 90(F) or 37(C), (which is about 100F), BEFORE your summer solstice, they should produce flowers within 6 weeks

Sorry but I do not believe that for a second, Aldrovanda has been found flowering in Febuary in Australia about 6 hours drive south from my locality (Armadale, New south wales), it has also been located at a small fishing/ holiday town I used to stay at as a kid, it has been found in flower generally during autumn but also other months, the summer solstice here is in December.

I will have to get a picture of my Aldrovanda set up for you, very natural looking set up, tannin ridden water, live carex sp,lily pad (sp?) with large numerous plants with many side apices.

[rsivertsen]

I'll look forward to that, especially any of the natural habitats of Aldrovanda! I can only report my observations, with those plants that grow for me, which are originally the Japanese strains. Water lilies and duckweed actually out-compete Aldrovanda for sunlight as both can totally cover the surface and block out any sunlight for any other aquatic plants below. The larger water lilies occupy deeper areas, and Aldrovanda goes into decline when they drift into those areas; the best strands grow in areas of less than 4 to 6 inches, sometimes just an inch or two of water, and warm to the touch too.

[matti]

Sorry, no photos of natural habitat, I have never seen the plant in location near me or anywere elce (to rare and elusive), the lagoon here is on a military base.

[rsivertsen]

Some of my favorite CP sites happen to be on, or near military bases! In Florida, Eglin Air Force Base hosts some spectacular Sarracenias, and Ping's; it's getting more and more difficult to visit these sites now, after 9/11. In the NJ Pine Barrens, there are a few nice sites just out of Fort Monmouth, way out in the middle of nowhere, and one day, just as I was adjusting the focus and angle of my camera, in one of these isolated and prisine sites, with nothing but a few birds and mosquitoes singing in my ear, suddenly, a formation of fighter jets flew overhead so close, I could read the markings and numbers of the aircraft! I spare you the details of how startled I was!

[ICPS-bob]

Out here in the hills, we can look down on the jet fighter planes as they fly down the narrow canyons hugging the terrain.

[matti]

No one can access the one here unexploded bombs and what not, it is huge, like 10x 10 km. lots of great cp habbitat in there.

[rsivertsen]

There's a site nearby where I live which was once both the Picattiny Military Arsenal, and right next to it, a defunct chemical explosives factory; the site supposedly has S. purpurea, Drosera and I have seen several ponds and bogs nearby with Utricularia, but the rest of the place is strictly OFF-LIMITS for the same reason, undetonated explosives, and bombs, and the maps that identified where the locations of buried explosives that where hidden were lost in a fire when one of the warehouses exploded and burned down!