Irony or poetry?

[stevestewart]

Hello all,

My Dionaea 'Justina Davis' (thank you Brian!) is sending out a flower spike in Florida at this time of year! The plant is very young and it is very early for Vft's to flower here. Now if I only had a Dionaea in a government office to cross her with! ;D
Here is a not so great thumbnail photo to click on for proof.




Take care,
Steve

[venusflytrapfreak]

Hey Steve!! I see the flower stalk!!! It does seem to early and I live in Florida too and my flytraps are still growing!!! I guess that really won't have a real rest this season!! I just hope it doesn't kill them!! What part of Florida do you live??? I am in the Tampa area.

Good growing,
Ricky

[stevestewart]

Hello Ricky,

I live just north of Orlando.

Many Dionaea cultivars don't seem to require a dormancy at all, while others seem to need it annually. When the plants are young and small they seem to tolerate year around growing. I was very surprised that this plant had the strength to start a flower. I will probably remove the spike in a couple of days so I can get a larger plant sooner. Unless one of my other cultivars starts to flower.

I'm glad you could see the flower bud in the picture I posted, it needs to be enlarged several times to see it clearly.

Take care,
Steve

[venusflytrapfreak]

Thanks Steve!!I have mostly the 'typical' Dionaea, but I can tell they are some what dormant, but they are still growing slowly!!! No flower spikes yet for me.. I usually cut them off anyways.. I see that another cold front will be on it's way next week!!! Who knows how long this time...lol..

Take care,
Ricky

[ryanhellyer]

For the last two years, I've taken my sickliest plant and put it deep underneath a desk, behind some cupboards but beside a heater where it received almost no light all winter long. It became even more sickly looking and most of the traps turned black and fell off.

The first time I did this, the plant never fully recovered, but it did regrow it's traps towards the end of summer before I rudely shoved it back into the dark again. But when I did it (to the same plant) the second time , it sprouted a flower stalk mid winter !?? I cut off the stalk as I figured the plant would definitely die if I left it to flower.

It's now been six weeks since I took it out of it's second darkened dormancy and it's growing mega healthy looking full sized, traps with some nice red colouration! It still has some very small traps, but the biggest ones are almost as nice looking as the ones on my control plant for my low light experiment which it currently sitting beside on my window sill ... flytrapgrowing.info/growing-in-poor-conditions-1/

I didn't think of taking any photos before I put it in the dark for the winter, but I may do the same thing next winter and post the results as a new experiment.

I think it's a nice demonstration of how poorly you can treat a plant and it jump back to life as though nothing has happened to it. Why it's growing so well this year I'm not 100% sure. Perhaps it has become accustomed to a warped dormancy process?

[Brian Barnes]

Hey Steve.. You're welcome! Enjoy! ....Brian.

[stevestewart]

ryanhellyer said:

For the last two years, I've taken my sickliest plant and put it deep underneath a desk, behind some cupboards but beside a heater where it received almost no light all winter long. It became even more sickly looking and most of the traps turned black and fell off.

The first time I did this, the plant never fully recovered, but it did regrow it's traps towards the end of summer before I rudely shoved it back into the dark again. But when I did it (to the same plant) the second time , it sprouted a flower stalk mid winter !?? I cut off the stalk as I figured the plant would definitely die if I left it to flower.
flytrapgrowing.info/growing-in-poor-conditions-1/

Ryan,

Great segway to your blog! I didn't see any cultivation info about Dionaea 'Justina Davis' though.
I noticed a few errors about your understanding of cultivar groups and posted a note to you.
Barry Rice can probably help you more than I can in this area.

Take care,
Steven Stewart

[ryanhellyer]

stevestewart said:

Great segway to your blog! I didn't see any cultivation info about Dionaea 'Justina Davis' though.
I noticed a few errors about your understanding of cultivar groups and posted a note to you.
Barry Rice can probably help you more than I can in this area.

Bah humbug

When I made that cultivars page I prepared accurate lists of all the cultivars I could find and then picked through them to compare them with the official ICPS lists and those on Barry's website and I thought I had everything correct. But I think somewhere in the copy and pasting procedure I mixed up my good and bad lists. Sheesh! I hope I haven't been confusing too many new plant growers

Thanks for pointing out the correction Steven. You are the first to point out this glaringly obvious error. I think I've stared at those articles too much and I seem to gloss over even the most obvious errors. There's also a bunch of minor typographical errors I need to correct at some stage too.

cheers,
Ryan

[ryanhellyer]

stevestewart said:

I didn't see any cultivation info about Dionaea 'Justina Davis' though.

You must have just overlooked the Justina Davis item. It was listed in alphabetical order along with the rest ... flytrapgrowing.info/cultivars/

However, on rifling through them all and back checking everything to make sure there weren't any more errors, I noticed that I was missing Petite Dragon. So I was definitely missing one, just not the one you mentioned



I am a little baffled with something though. In the ICPS registered cultivars list (available here) there is no mention of 'Wacky Traps', 'B52', 'Justina Davis' or 'Petite Dragon' despite these all being officially registered cultivars (AFAIK). Is the ICPS list outdated or have I got something wrong here?



Thanks for the help.
Ryan,

[ICPS-bob]

The Carnivorous Plant Database
www.omnisterra.com/bot/cp_home.cgi
is compiled by Jan Schlauer and is updated periodically when Jan sends Rick Walker the updated database. The last update was Aug. 26, 2006. Although Jan is on the ICPS Board and is responsible for the cultivar registration process, the CP Database is his personal project.

For the most up-to-date list of official cultivars published in CPN, see
www.carnivorousplants.org/cpn/Species/CultivarRegistrations.htm
I maintain this page and update it immediately when the next CPN is mailed from the printer. However, these are only those cultivars published in CPN. Cultivar descriptions published elsewhere will eventually find their way to Jan's database.

The same issue, although more complicated, relates to official species. What is an official species, subspecies, variety? Why do some taxonomists recognize a plant as a different species and other taxonomists do not? Because the science/art of taxonomy depends on discussion, debate, and consensus. It is squishy and sometimes takes many years and twists to become firmly established -- and then someone comes along and upsets the cart again. The Carnivorous Plant Database is Jan's interpretation of the subject.

[ryanhellyer]

Thanks Bob. I didn't realise there was so much ambiguity even within the ICPS itself. I'd better go edit my article a bit then as I've been claiming to have an accurate list of Dionaea cultivars recognised by the ICPS, but it seems this was not the case at all.

Thanks for the clarification

[stevestewart]

ryanhellyer said:

stevestewart said:

I didn't see any cultivation info about Dionaea 'Justina Davis' though.

You must have just overlooked the Justina Davis item. It was listed in alphabetical order along with the rest ... flytrapgrowing.info/cultivars/

However, on rifling through them all and back checking everything to make sure there weren't any more errors, I noticed that I was missing Petite Dragon. So I was definitely missing one, just not the one you mentioned



I am a little baffled with something though. In the ICPS registered cultivars list (available here) there is no mention of 'Wacky Traps', 'B52', 'Justina Davis' or 'Petite Dragon' despite these all being officially registered cultivars (AFAIK). Is the ICPS list outdated or have I got something wrong here?



Thanks for the help.
Ryan,

Ryan,

Your blog is nicely set up, and it is easy to follow without missing anything. I like it. Don't forget Dionaea 'Bohemian Garnet' , I do believe this cultivar belongs in the Dionaea 'Dentate Traps Group'.

As I understand the Dionaea Dentate Traps Group, only the plants with distinctly triangular cilia on the traps margins belong to this group. The cultivars with normal and non-triangular cilia on the margins of the traps are separate from the group. As I said earlier Barry would be (and has been) the one to clear this up more eloquently than I can.

I saw the description information information you have on Dionaea 'Justina Davis' just no cultivation information such as flowering times, early maturation rate etc. that I was evidently poorly and jokingly eluding to as possibilities in my original post in this thread. My plant is doing so well I have decided to let it flower and go for seed, (just like any dirty old man should ) to see if any or all of the offspring are all green and flower when young.

It's easy to get glossed over when reading all of the good and bad, complete and incomplete, information, misinformation and disinformation, available on the seemingly endless web nowdays .

Bob Ziemer's Humbolt site seems to be tirelessly current, at his seemingly continuous command, in keeping up with the "new" cultivar information available on carnivorous plants. His site is also a great indicator as to what will be good and bad possibilities for cultivars and or species of the future. Bob's site is just without any bells and whistles. (at least I haven't seen any, he may have them hidden) You should look up cultivar descriptions on his site, usually the first link after the title heading.

Take care,
Steven Stewart

[ryanhellyer]

stevestewart said:

I saw the description information information you have on Dionaea 'Justina Davis' just no cultivation information such as flowering times, early maturation rate etc. that I was evidently poorly and jokingly eluding to as possibilities in my original post in this thread.

I've been intentionally trying to avoid putting detailed information about the various cultivars up at this stage as that sort of detail may be more suited to separate articles on each individual cultivar (a job for another day). Plus I'm no expert on this type of thing so would need to do some research first.

I may have to make my cultivars page a little more vague though. Perhaps a list of cultivars with no claim that they're an extensive or accurate list would be a better idea. I'm mainly aiming this site at beginner growers who hopefully wont be too bothered by an inaccurate list and I can place a link on the page to a more comprehensive run down. There are other websites (including the one I'm posting on right now) which can cover the more advanced topics far better than I.