Re: Nep flowers & rooting, red dragon vft,

Oliver T Massey CFS (massey@hal.fmhi.usf.edu)
Wed, 26 Jun 1996 10:37:27 -0400 (EDT)

> Tom,
>
> I think it would would work better if using apical meristem cutting
> but this didn't stop the N.ventricosa, which was a second cutting.
> The top two buds started to grow and after several leaves, the one
> facing the light starting making a flower. So it seems the conditions
> are also important. Or like I mentioned before, one plant tends to
> have one flower per season. It was funny, the fellow who I got the
> cutting from told me about this effect and I express some disblief.
> He said that this one should flower and about four months later, it
> was :)
>
> Dave Evans
>
> P.S. I was told that they might even flower before being fully
> rooted. After reading how some people have gotten six leaves
> to grow on their cuttings before roots appear, I give this more
> credit. The one which flowerd for me was very rooted, BTW.
>

Well, now that we have started talking I guess I have had one or two
instances where plants or cuttings new to my collection flowered, but I
guess I thought it had something to do with the changing growing
conditions - more water, more light, etc. Of the three cases I
remember, two were new plants (maybe these were actually recent
cuttings?). In my own case, I have probably taken 100-200 cuttings and
I don't remember any of them having flowered. Then again, with the
exception of the apical meristem, I typically take two node cuttings
(maybe 85%), with some single node cuttings and even fewer three node
cuttings.

I will try some four node cuttings and see what happens.

On other notes, I tried rooting a couple of cuttings in water and so far they
have produced new roots like gang busters. They were both N. coccinea (sp)
which is an easy grower anyway. This is one that I grow in relatively deep
standing water and which has roots in the water so thick you could walk on
them, so this was not a difficult test case. I will probably continue to try
this approach when I break stems accidently or when I don't have a lot of
time.

Someone mentioned the red dragon vft; I have seen this and it is
surprising. A friend of the people in Atlanta got one and I kept it for
awhile a few months ago. It is completely dark red and at first glance
almost looks black next to its green neighbors. Under low light it does
loose some of its coloring and goes toward green, but in good light it
regains supersaturated red coloring.

Related to this someone commented on other forms of vfts (as if maybe
they got some that were supposed to be unique and weren't). While I
expect there are a lot of owner-named minor variations floating around,
the red dragon and the dentate (or is it dente?) form are definitely
unique.

Good growing
Tom in Fl