Lynx lurking among the plants

I had 4 spiders with me last week. A Golden Orb web spider, a Salticidae - Jumping spider, a green Lynx Spider and a house spider. I let the first 2 spider go. The Lynx was left among my plants to survival, the house spider will be food later. 

I thought the Lynx will be dead among the sundews, but it survived crawling and escaping from the dews. The next day I found it lurking among the Neps pitchers, I say this is 1 smart Lynx spider. There isn't much Sundew among my Nep pots and it was near the nectar source where food will be attracted...

 

Drosera Adelae Flower stalk!?

I had this Drosera Adelae for a while and it's been producing tones of offshoots for me. But never flower before, I was inspecting the plants just now and noticed some weird growth in the middle of the Adelae. Please tell me this is a flower stalk!.

Byblis Liniflora seeds ready for harvest!

Remember the post on my newly acquired Byblis Liniflora flowering? During flowering, I thought I would like to assist pollination using a spare paint brush. Flowers has withered and seeds pod swell were in process, some has produced seeds and I had harvest the first pod :)

After withered


Swelling in positivity


Success, waiting to fully dry and open up


Ready for harvest


About 25 seeds in all

A short walk around Kent Ridge Park to see wild Nepenthes!

A friend shared where I could find Wild Nepenthes Rafflesiana in a park. So I've decide to take a walk for photo shooting. It is illegal to collect anything from the park.

The only things you should take are photos and memories, leave only footsteps and not litters.

During my walk about 2 hours, I thought there were many Rafflesiana but there seems to be only a small patch of 3 Rafflesiana plant I could find. Instead, there were Gracilis everywhere. Anyway, this is how they look like growing in the wild in Singapore. This is a park and overcast with plenty of trees, there are hardly any sun light, all filtered.

Nepenthes Rafflesiana (Kent Ridge Park)



Same plant - The pitcher tendril is so long!



Same plant - The only young pitcher. There were no other pitchers.



All the rest of the photos are Nepenthes Gracilis (Kent Ridge Park). Not all the plants has pitchers, I'm surprised that only certain patches of them growing has pitchers, there were not very big either. The size were mainly 2 cm to 8. I don't think there were any that is more than 10 cm long.

They are found almost everywhere



One of those few patche that has more pitchers forming. These were no longer than 5cm.










Some closed up photos of pitchers

Nepenthes Ampullaria and fellow froggy

Was at the park today near a stream where I'd notice many little frogs at the shore in the water, I took 1 back for class sharing session for coming Tuesday and will return this 1 back to where I took it.

Well, I think my Ampullaria won't mind a photo with the froggy!


Nepenthes Ampullaria in the wild mostly grow on ground level They got their nutrients from fallen forest leaves matter into the pitchers, In Borneo, a tiny frog was observed from the pitcher of N. Ampullaria. Article can be found HERE.

More new Nepenthes!! I cannot control myself when I see a good deal :D

Got myself 2 pots of very beautiful Hookeriana Tricolor, but it has more area of Red shades and Blood red peristome which caught my eyes immediately. I Love it! The bigger pot is for my mum and I'm sure she'll love it too. The other nep I got was a Bicalcarata, I just thought it stress easily and wanted a pot with less pitcher.


Nepenthes Hookeriana Tricolor
The bigger pot


Smaller pot


Look at all the shades of red on those pitchers, there is very little green if you can spot it.





Nepenthes Bicalcarata, the pot comes with 2 stowaway pitcher in the soil, seller thinks it's the Rafflesiana seeds




Those fangs on the pitcher!


Even the dead bare fangs!!

Cephalotus stressing out, decided to uproot and take a look...

I should not have shifted my pot of Cephalotus deeper in the grow rack, I think the was at least few degrees C difference for the past month and the Ceph decide to go south. The pitchers were dying very on a large scale and I thought I should check what is going on in the roots to make sure no rot. It was also time I should split the plant...

A lot Pitchers dying


Ok, the roots were fine, no rotting, that means my mix of 1:1 Sphagnum:Perlite is right. But the sphagnum has broken down, it's good to replace a new fresh mix. In fact I noticed the roots has developed well in there, there is so much more roots than before. Some plants grow on the roots too, I think the root was too near the surface.. Very long roots.


When I first got it,


Other views of the roots and plants, I had removed all the dead pitchers. Later, I snip small clumps some with roots and potted them up.

Nepenthes Rafflesiana new pitcher opens!

My Nepenthes Rafflesiana new pitcher has open it's lid. So I've decided to take photos of the new pitcher when it is still fresh. With my DSLR and a few photo stack.

Nepenthes Rafflesiana : old pitcher


The new pitcher has open it's lid 07 july in late morning.


A closer view at the peristome



Nepenthes Ampullaria with ligh red peristome


Another view



Nepenthes Ampullaria with yellowish green peristome

Byblis Liniflora Flower Bloom for the first time

The new Byblis Liniflora which I just bought, the flower did not bloom for me on the first day. Perhaps it was a little stress after a quick repot. But on the second day it did!! It was sunday and I had the opportunity to take good photos with my DSLR set.

Please enjoy!
First with just frame of almost whole plant, perhaps 10cm tall, 3-4 flowers.


Here's a closed up, Anther and Stigma present. Pollen too?


Closer view to see if we can identify where the pollens are? In the centre?


2 views more on the whole flower.

Some interesting updates

Let's compare the 2 Venusta, 1 in my office 24C-30C and my home 28C - 33C (recently)

Office July 2015
Home July 2015
Drosera Capillaris, looking like a spatulata but I will try to check with seller... I think there is a Capillaris long arm with looks like this.



Well, the import thing is not the name, but how the plant show u love! :D



I got my hands on a Byblis Liniflora while I was collecting some MO stuff from a friend. This photo was taking in the car. The flower blooms pretty nice


Potted up, Luckily I took that photo in the car!



Drosera sessilifolia - finally getting bigger.


Last but not least... A notti katydid came in to admire my plants