U. subulata and D. felix flowering

I watched the Superbowl at a friend's house today and ate a truly massive amount of ceviche. I hope your day was similarly fruitful. It's been a week and a half since my last post! I've been all over the place lately. One of the nicest things going on in the collection right now is this Utricularia subulata flower stalk.

Such a yellow flower!

U. subulata is a very frustrating plant. It's got a wonderful flower with a cool zig-zag flower stalk and these weird dew drops at the base of the peduncles. Very cool! Except it mostly produces cleistogamous flowers for me. Cleistogamous flowers form buds, but never bother to actually produce a flower – they just self-fertilize within the bud, then spill seed everywhere. I probably get several hundred cleistogamous flowers for each real flower stalk. Why can't you be better U. subulata? I want to love you!

Another plant that has been looking pretty legit is this Pinguicula moctezumae I received in a trade a bit ago.

I should separate these two out.

I've never really cared for P. moctezumae, but I think that's because it tends to clump (which is not my favorite characteristic in a plant). These are actually really attractive under lights. Also, the flowers of this species are really nice. Someday!

My Pinguicula gigantea is blooming again for the first time in a while. But I'm posting today because it's been doing pretty well on the gnats lately.

It's not good to be a flying insect in my garage.

You can find photos of P. gigantea that are absolutely covered in gnats, which I think is super gross and ugly. Those are mostly grown in pretty humid greenhouses – I just don't have that many bugs in my growing areas. Still, good to know that mine can actually do work once in a while.

My Drosera brevifolia has responded well to feeding and is pretty much full-sized now.

So tiny! Those wedge-shaped leaves are so distinctive.

Gotta feed these again soon. Gonna want to re-seed this colony to get a few more going. Very cute plants! Nice red color too.

I recently took a trip to California Carnivores, where I picked up this sweet Drosera hilaris.

It's just starting to color up under the lights.

This is one of the neater South African species. I've heard conflicting reports of it being a summer dormant plant. It may just be that it is optionally dormant in hot weather. Apparently this one really likes cool temps. We'll see how it does!

Finally, the delight of winter so far has been my blooming Drosera felix. The other day I was lucky enough to catch a flower open.

So. Cute. Oh my god.

This plant is hands-down the cutest thing in my collection right now. Look how fuzzy the flower stalk is! I got another good picture of this flower from a different angle and shared it on my Instagram. I always try to have different pictures up there!

Winter's not so bad.

Utricularia longifolia putting on a show

It's been almost exactly a month since I first noticed a flower stalk on my Utricularia longifolia. Today is the first day with a fully open flower, and man is it pretty.

Beautiful U. longifolia flower.

There are two stalks on the plant, and lots of buds forming.

The stalk is 18 inches (~45 cm) tall!

Unfortunately, I'm dealing with a pretty serious aphid problem right now, and they keep finding their way onto these flower stalks. I've been spraying Take Down around my collection (on the recommendation of Damon Collingsworth at California Carnivores) and hopefully the aphids will get beaten back before they can do too much damage.

In the mean time though, let's look at other Utrics flowering in my collection, because Utricularia flowers are the coolest.

First up, Utricularia subulata and Utricularia calycifida from a recent post.

I like these U. subulata flowers more than the cleistogamous ones (obviously).

U. calycifida looking elegant as usual.

Then a few from today – Utricularia livida, Utricularia bisquamata, and Utricularia sandersonii blue form.

U. livida still blooming up a storm almost a year later.

U. bisquamata amongst the Drosera capensis red form (with a D. capensis 'Albino' weed as well).

Angry bunnies and cleistogamous U. subulata flowers.

That U. sandersonii pot is a bit messy, but at least the angry bunnies are cute.

Flowers!

There's a lot in bloom right now. It's spring!

Drosera helodes.

Sarracenia flava.

Drosera omissa with lots of flowers.

Utricularia calycifida.

Drosera sessilifolia (probably).

Utricularia subulata.

Drosera natalensis.

And it's not just carnivores that are in bloom. Peep this Cleistocactus tupizensis.

C. tupizensis.

Nice!

Back from the dead

Look! My first Utricularia sandersonnii blue form flower in months and months.

These little flowers are so darn cute.

Lost in a sea of moss and Utricularia subulata flower stalks, the Angry Bunny rises again. I don't remember if U. sandersonii is self fertile. I hope it is, cause I'd really like to have a clean pot of it, and I feel like it would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) to clean off a chunk of stuff from this pot to transplant. Such a pretty lavender color.

After much waiting and speculation, the truth is revealed: my Drosera filiformis Florida Red was dormant rather than dead. It's waking up now!

Rise and shine little guy.

It went to sleep in August or so, which is a long time for a nap. No matter! I'll let it wake up, feed it heavily for a couple months, and then get propagating. Everybody likes red D. filiformis.

My aphid-ravaged Drosera anglica CA × HI is actually looking pretty good right now.

It helps that this is such a vigorous hybrid.

It may be almost time to repot it (and wash away all the soil) so that I can have a clean, aphid-free start. Not sure what I'll do with that Drosera ultramafica × spatulata in there. I'd love to share it around, but I don't want to introduce aphids into anyone's collection. Maybe it'll just end up getting tossed. It happens.

Finally, remember that Drosera brevifolia that came back from the dead a while ago? Now it's in danger of being totally consumed by Sphagnum.

I need to clear out this moss.

I feel like I need to start a new clean pot of these guys as well. I have a few seed packets, it's just...I need to make more room under my lights. Again. Story of my life.

A few new blooms

A couple days ago I noticed a little patch of yellow over in my Drosera capensis red form pot.

It's like a whole ecosystem in this tray.

It's Utricularia subulata! And this time with a proper flower, rather than the cleistogamous ones I've seen around my collection in the past.

I love looking at my plants up close.

These are nice, colorful flowers, and they'd be very pleasing in a dedicated pot, I think. I feel conflicted about the weedy Utrics – I do like to see them, but I don't really want them in every pot in my collection.

I also noticed a little something forming in my Drosera adelae bush.

Looking forward to seeing the unique red flowers of D. adelae soon.

Aww yeah, it's a flower stalk. This is exciting, since it's my first on D. adelae. I think I've heard before that this species likes to wait until the pot is sufficiently large and sufficiently full of plants to bloom. I guess I know what that looks like now. More photos as events warrant!

The coolest thing I noticed today was that the Utricularia calycifida flower that has been developing for a while has finally popped, and it's a looker.

U. calycifida is an awesome plant. What lovely flowers.

This is great! And there are several more flowers on the way. This pot is going to look fabulous by the winter BACPS meeting.

Flowers!

How are things over here?

There's a lot going on in this little tray right now.

Each tray is like its own neighborhood.

 First off, it appears I was wrong about that caterpillar on my Drosera burmannii being the only one.

Chewed leaves and caterpillar poop. Great.

I found another in my Drosera adelae pot last night. Luckily there are lots of traps open on my Venus fly-trap right now. Also D. adelae is a very vigorous plant in my conditions and I'm sure it will recover just fine. Even if one or two of the plants succumb, there's a lot of root in that pot that will form new plantlets.

Next door, it looks like there are gemmae forming on Drosera allantostigma.

Still looking good, although the colors are more orange and less pink than they used to be.

I need to get some media ready!

In the same pot I have a little cleistogamous flower stalk of Utricularia subulata.

Another charming weed.

I like it. It's got a nice sculptural quality, and the dew drops at the crooks are pretty neat. I've said it before, but I think the weedy Utricularia get short shrift.

This Drosera capillaris seems to also have a bit of humic acid buildup, like the Drosera aliciae over in my community pot.

It's still pretty, but I need to help it get healthier.

Apparently flushing the pots can help. Another chore to toss onto my list for a day that I have free to spend with my plants.

Meanwhile I can't tell if Drosera filiformis is dormant or dead or what.

Right now this is more of a "liverwort and moss pot" than a "D. filiformis" pot.

I'm definitely not chucking them out any time soon, but I wouldn't be amazed if these guys aren't gonna wake back up. I think the media is too dense for their taste. We'll see though. Give it a couple months.

My Drosera brevifolia pot is a good example of why you shouldn't give up on plants too soon.

I've always liked the organic look of this pot.

See that plant in the middle? This is what it looked like back at the beginning of October:

Back from the dead!

Welcome back little guy!