H. ionasii and H. nova species Ilu tepui

From: Sunpitcher@aol.com
Date: Thu Mar 30 2000 - 22:56:08 PST


Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 01:56:08 EST
From: Sunpitcher@aol.com
To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com
Message-Id: <aabcdefg943$foo@default>
Subject: H. ionasii and H. nova species Ilu tepui

Hi Andreas. I grow both of these plants and find them both to be agonizingly
slow to grow. Would you have any
suggestions for their culture? Should they be treated any different than the
other species? Do you grow yours in live sphagnum? This was suggested to me
once but I never did get around to switching mine from peat/sand/perlite. I
do fertilize and use freeze dried insects. Unfortunately, these two are too
small to shove bugs into the pitchers. I find this sometimes makes a lot of
difference in growth rate. thanks for any suggestions.

Angie Nichols, South Carolina

<<in my experience the true H. ionasii is a very easy plant to grow, however
there is a species (I call it H. spec. Ilu) which is often floating around
as H. ionasii, especially in the US. It was brought back by an expedition
from the plateau some years ago by a US based group of CPers. Since there
was an article in CPN where this plant was called H. ionasii (which is
completely wrong without any doubt) there is a lot of confusion and this
plant still is sold as H. ionasii by some growers. To see a comparison of
the plants, just have a look in my web-page where both are pictured. It is
very easy to tell them apart and I do not understand how this mixup ever
could have happened.

In my experience this species from the plateau (the true H. ionasii does not
even occur on the plateau but in a shrubby habitat halfway up the mountain)
is indeed not really difficult but unbelievably slow. I waited years for
adult pitchers in some occasions!

Usually H. ionasii is quite quick and a young plant should have adult
pitchers quite quick if grown under the right conditions.>>



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