Sarracenia pregnant with triplets

From: Gordon Wells (wells@iri.upc.es)
Date: Mon May 26 1997 - 03:09:16 PDT


Date: Mon, 26 May 1997 12:09:16 +0200
From: Gordon Wells <wells@iri.upc.es>
To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com
Message-Id: <aabcdefg2068$foo@default>
Subject: Sarracenia pregnant with triplets

I was doing some cleaning up in my terrarium this weekend
and found my S. excellens in a very bizarre state of affairs.

This healthy plant had flowered 3 times in the last year, yet
for some reason the flowers (minus petals) and the seed pods
never dried up, and remained green and fresh for over a year.
I'd been waiting and waiting for them to finally dry and reveal
their ripened seeds, but they appeared to have drunk from the
fountain of youth and remained as fresh as the day they were
born. Is this normal for this plant ?

Yesterday I was snipping dry pitchers, and decided that enough
was enough - I took the scissors to these flowers as well, convinced
that they probably never developed seeds anyway. Afterwards, I
got curious to see just what had become of the seeds and split one of
the green seed pods open. To my surprise, one of them had managed
to produce about 10 seeds, 3 of which had sprouted into little
seedlings right inside the sealed seed pod! Indeed, my Sarracenia
was pregnant with triplets, which I fortuitously managed to bring
to light by this crude cesarian section. I promptly swaddled them
in sphagnum and hoped for the best.

Now I ask, what could have led this plant to exhibit such bizarre
behaviour ? Is this the result of tissue culture ? Of domestic
growing conditions ? Of Chernobyl ? Of the stress and strain
plants are forced to endure in modern times ? Will plant midwives
be a necessary figure for the future survival of carnivorous plants ?
Will we ever be able to return to simpler times when seeds waited
to germinate until having fallen from their seed pods onto the soil ?

If anyone has an answer to these questions, or any similar testimony,
please come forth.

Best regards,

Gordon Wells
Instituto de Robotica e Informatica Industrial
Edificio Nexus, planta 2
Gran Capitan 2-4
Barcelona E-08034
SPAIN



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Jan 02 2001 - 17:31:03 PST