Helianphora minor

I obtained a pot of Helianphora minor about 1 year ago at a cornivorous plant meeting. One of the participants brought the pods, and generously enough, he gave them to us on free! Since then, I've been growing the first and the only Helianphora at my grow space.

This is the appearance about a year ago.

And this is now! It is not very quickly but gradually growing. This spring, I'm going to separate the roots to some pots.

One of the nectar spoon, which secretes sweet liquid

I carelessly dropped a hard thing onto this pitcher and it's damaged... Any parts of Helanphora has no flexibility at all and they break very easily! But it's still growing even after damaged.

The 18th Toukai Carnivorous Plants Meeting

The 18th Carnivorous Plants Meeting held by TCPS took place last Sunday. It was in my local and much more easier to travel to the venue, compared with the last one in Osaka.

According to the organiser, 19 people attended the meeting. Some of them were from long way cities such as Tokyo and Osaka. I enjoyed chatting with them.

Pinguicula jaumavensis

A flower of P. pilosa

One of Nepenthes- I'm not so familiar with pitcher plants... Sorry

N. ampullaria - I think.... Am I right?

Lots of rare butterworts were on sale

So were sundews

This is what I bought at the meeting, N. x ventrata. I'm now struggling to look up the growing tips.

The 64th Kansai Carnivorous Plants Meeting

Various exhibits

I went to Osaka last Sunday to take part in the 64th Kaisai Carnivorous Plants Meeting. It wasn't the first time for me to attend the meeting and I already knew most of the participants. So I had no hesitation to join there at all although It was quite tough to reach the venue all the way from my local by coach , which took about 3 hours....

This is the most newly registered pygmy sundew, Drosera gibsonii with a lot of gemaae in the centre.

 Drosera macrophylla

Beautiful purplish blue bladderworts, Utricularia lasiocaulis, native to the north west Australia

This venus flytrap is so weird! According to the label, It is called  'Triton'. The owner imported this plant from Germany.

This is a South African sundew, Drosera hillaris. it is svery hard to cultivate in Japan due to summer heat.

Drosera caledonica

Venus flyatrap 'Suzuki', a very beautiful rosette form.

Then this weekend on Sunday, 18th Tokai Carnivorous Plants Meeting held by TCPS is taking place. In fact this is the meeting of my local Carnivorous Plant Society. So it is no way no to join there!

Pipewort

One day last week, I dropped in at a local botanical shop and found pipeworts (Eriocaulon parvum) in a big case filled with rain water. They were thriving like weeds in the case but not on sale. So the shop owner willingly let me pull some of them.

Bringing them home, I placed them in a pot. Hopefully I'll obtain lots of the seeds.

This pipeworts brooming a lot of small flowers in metallic grey.

The flower looks like a very tiny artichoke.

Then I dismantled one of the flowers. There are pale white seeds between petals.

The season for pygmy sundew's gemmae

Gemmae of pygmy sundews are now growing in my greenhouse. As we have long hot summer this year, the fruit season is a bit later than normal year.

Drosera gebsonii 

Drosera pedicellaris

Drosera walyunga

Drosera scorpioides 'Gidgegannup Form'

Drosera callisitos

This pygmy sundew is widely known as D. 'Toodyay Pink' in Japan but as Toodyay Pink is a synonym of D. spilos, which is another pygmy sundew, I must say this is a wrong name. After looking up some information on the Internet, I come to be almost convinced that this is a natural hybrid between D. nitidula and D. pygmaea. Anyway whatever this hybrid is, this is a nice pygmy sundew as the cultivation is quite easy and in autumn the whole plant beautifully coloures in vivid red.

Drosera linearis

Drosera linearis, commonly known 'slenderleaf sundew' is native to North America such as Great Lake in Michigan.

I stared the cultivation of this sundew in last autumn as a drosera grower living in Kansai region kindly gave me 2 of his precious seedlings. First of all, I was pretty worried if I could maintain this beautiful but difficult sundew due to the differences of environmental conditions, that this species inhabits under cool climate while our summer is boiling hot. 

So during spring when the weather was still mild, I placed the pot under full sunshine to encourage the plants would grow faster. Then as the temps. exceeded 30 C in late May, I immediately put it under half-shade to avoid the risks. 

Even though I could avoid strong sunshine, I expected that the plants would be weaker due to the lack of sunshine. However, it seemed to be alright under poor ray although their growth got so slow..... As a result, D. linearis seems to seek less sunshine, compared with other North American temperate sundews like D. anglica, D. filiformis and D. intermedia. 

Until now I haven't faced any troubles and they ensured the whole summer heats without operating air conditioner after all. D. linearis is probably tolerant to heat more than I initially expected. Lucky me!

I took up the cultivation of this sundew with only 2 seedlings as I wrote above. And now the number is still 2. Hopefully the next year I will see the flowers and obtain a lot of seeds. 2 isn't enough at all to maintain the species!

16 October 2011

15 April 2012

5 May 2012

10 May 2012

29 July 2012

22 September 2012

Wild stonecrops

These are native or non-native stonecrops in wild. Absorbing moisture from the air during night time, they tend to be seen near lots of water like riverside, seaside and pondside, where fog easily appears at night.

Sedum oryzifolium on the middle of the cliff near the sea at my local site.

Sedum sarmentosum, this sedum is very common and easy to find, especially banks of rivers. It is said this is naturalised species from China and Korean peninsula more than a century ago.

Sedum bulbiferum at my backyard. This stonecrops make gemmae around its leaf joints.

Sedum makinoi cv., this species usually have green leaves but this is a cultivar with yellow leaves. I found this community on a residential street. So this must have come out of one of the houses near this site.

Sedum mexicanum at a gutter cover. It look so unstable but I think it is comfortable as absorbing moisture from this gutter.This sedum is one of horticultural kinds but originally native to Mexico.