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| The 'Brunei Red' cultivar is from Borneo Exotics, clone #99 |
Nepenthes rafflesiana is species that is fairly widespread, growing in Borneo, Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, and Sumatra. It's a lowland species growing at elevations from sea level to 1500 meters above. The younger plant's leaves are covered in hairs, giving them almost a fuzzy appearance.
It was getting increasingly hard to take pictures of the lowland Nepenthes that I grow in the terrarium. Here's what it looks like after I spent a good amount of time chopping down vines. I have yet to clean it out, that comes next weekend.
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| Lowland terrarium |
Front row from left to right: N. bicalcarata, N. rafflesiana Brunei Giant, N. ampullaria 'Brunei Red'....the rest on the right front is N. Judith Finn's vine. It's flowering so I'm waiting to cut it down.
Just a general idea of what's going on in there. I'll make individual posts for the one's I haven't yet now that I can get in and take some pictures again.
Great looking pitcher and terrarium. How do the N. or other pitchers propagate? Do you collect their seeds?
ReplyDeleteThanks! Most Nepenthes are either cloned and lab grown or propagated from cuttings. The are able to root pretty easily from a cutting and the main plant will sprout new growth from the base or from nodes along the vine. I only have one seed grown Nepenthes because they take a while to flower, and then they only flower with male or female flower parts, but not both, so you would need one of each gender to produce viable seed. Not easy to have the two you want flowering at the same time, plus they are mostly males, which makes it even harder :(
DeleteHi Melody,
ReplyDeleteI'm about to re-establish a terrarium at work and came across your lovely setup while google-ing Nepenthes ampullaria terrarium. Can you tell me what light setup you use please? I had some success with ampullaria a few years back, but I never felt I got the light quite right. Your setup is producing very good results.
Many thanks,
John N/Pitcherplantation.
Hi John,
DeleteWell, this set up is a little large for an office, I had a total of 6 T8 fluorescent bulbs on an 150 gallon tall sized tank. Now using florescent was great because it added enough heat to the tank without having to supplement it any to keep it on the warm side, even at night. Doing it on a smaller scale may or may not be enough heat on it's own, but if you close it at night it helps retain some. I had a mix of 10,000, 8,500, and 6,500 K bulbs mostly from fish tank brands that were sold at pet stores for growing and bringing out the color in light loving corals and aquatic plants. Don't let the native habitats of N. ampullaria fool you into thinking they like shade, because with giving them the same light as the others, they colored up fantastically, and if you look at pictures of ampullaria 'Brunei Red' elsewhere on this site, the pitchers got HUGE. I just kept the amps slightly further away from the bulbs as some of the others that like more full sun. I used the mix of different K bulbs to try and get as much of the range of usable light spectrum. Might've been unnecessary, but it was working beautifully, so I kept up on using a mix. I've got a 10 gallon tank for my seedlings right now that has just two 6,500K T5 bulbs on it that brings out almost just as much color just on it's own, so I wouldn't go any less than that if you do decide to use fluorescent bulbs.
Good luck with your terrarium, can't wait so see the amps when you've got it going!