Cactus Blog

Anne’s latest creation is a Carnivorous Terrarium.

Nice!

You can come in to the store and talk to Anne about Carnivores. She likes them.

Dionaea muscipula “Dente” has caught a fly.

Anne found an article on the Beeb letting us know that Nepenthes can sometimes glow blue.

Yes, blue.

How blue? Well, blue enough that it looks like the carnivorous plants have cold lips.

Carnivorous Plants are just getting a real workout here on the blog recently.

Sarracenia alata is our newest species. It’s also known as Yellow Trumpets or Pale Pitcher Plant, and it hails from the Gulf Coast area. Most commonly from Mississippi.

Carnivorous plants at the UC Berkeley Botanic Garden.

Sarracenia leucophylla. Nice big-throated pitchers. Interesting red veining amid the white coloration.

Big fat Sarracenia purpurea, very dark in the full sun.

Dionaea muscipula has caught a big juicy fly.

The UC Botanical Garden has a lot of Pitcher Plants in their collection. Here we see an entire display of just Sarracenias.

Nice!

The Sarracenia rubra are looking particularly fresh today. Some might say they’re chatting with each other. Yacking away through the summertime.

Another picture after the break… (more…)

Sarracenia “Cobra Nest” is a hybrid from unknown parentage. But the one thing we do know, besides that it gets about 12″ high that is, and likes acidic water and lives in a bog and prefers full sun, I mean besides all that, is that is VERY PHOTOGENIC!

It’s been a long cold winter for the Pitcher Plants, but they’re finally ready to come out for spring.

Sarracenia flava

These are spectacular, even if they don’t have a lot of pitchers – big and blooming too. Very distinctive. Great form! I give them a 9.6.

Sarracenia purpurea, not sure the subspecies, but they are full and very veiny. A bit more common than the flavas, but not as subtle. 8.7 is all they can garner from my scoring machine. Maybe I should revisit the point system and the computer algorithm.

hi there!

i picked up a Sarracenia purpurea while i was there a few weeks ago, and was wondering if you guys had more information about the plant [subspecies/origin]?

thanks for your time!

tina

Tina,

The plant is from the east coast, and is quite cold hardy even surviving up into Canada. As far as we know, the plants we sell are not a subspecies; we get them from a grower back East.

The pitchers create a digestive enzyme in the base that digests the prey, and the neck of the pitchers are lined with hairs that keep the flies and such from climbing back out. Over time the digestive juices are replaced in older pitchers by bacteria and protozoa that digest the prey and make the nutrients available to the plants.

Peter

Here is an awesome botanical illustration from a long long time ago.

Oldest known picture of Sarracenia purpurea, from Clusius’ “Rariorum plantarum historia”, cf. 18, 1601

And in habitat in North Carolina.

1985. Horse Cove bog, near Highlands, Macon County, North Carolina, United States
Sturgis McKeever, Georgia Southern University

Dame Helen Mirren is presented with a nepenthes cultivar (a new variety of the carnivorous pitcher plant), Nepenthes ‘Helen’ named in her honour. Doesn’t she look pleased?

Blogs that caught my eye today include:

All Andrew’s Plants has new pitchers growing on his Nepenthes. We always like to see new pitchers growing. And it seems there are new pitchers on Far Out Flora‘s Nepenthes too! Carnivorous tidings!

Bamboo and More is quietly enjoying the rainy weather through a lens.

The Pitcher Plant Project also has some new carnivorous pitchers growing, but these are the other type of Pitcher Plant, the Sarracenias.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day we’re finally bringing out some new Sarracenias.

And the Pinguiculas are blooming too.

Now you know? You do! You do know!

…and seeing what’s inside.

The Pitcher Plant Project has some great photos of Sarracenias by moonlight.

At Dark Roasted Blend and at National Geographic.

Don’t miss the rat being swallowed whole by a plant.

We were not having a lot of success with our pitcher plants this year so Hap tested the water. In the past, EBMUD’s water was nicely neutral, but this year it has become a lot more alkaline so we’ve had to start correcting the water.

Everyone recommends distilled water for carnivorous plants, and we agree.

But we’re using a teaspoon of vinegar in a gallon of regular water at the nursery since it’s cheaper. And at home we’re using our refrigerated drinking water – we put lemon slices in the water and that works too!

Nepenthes alata growing a new baby pitcher, finally. It’s only about an inch right now, but it will eventually get to 12″.

A remarkable relationship between a shrew and a Montane Pitcher, from the Guardian.

Rat-eating plants do exist! Nepenthes attenboroughii.

“The plant is among the largest of all carnivorous plant species and produces spectacular traps.” Co-discoverer Stewart McPherson

And another picture from io9