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Homer1 Jan 03, 2004 08:12 PM

Hey, I just thought I would post a pic of some really attractive sundews that were given to me recently. I just planted them tonight, and they are about the size of a quarter in diameter. I was told that these are native to Florida.

Does anyone know the species?

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Homer W. Faucett III, esq.
Purveyor of Trivialities and Fine Nonsense

Replies (15)

Jon Werner Jan 03, 2004 08:57 PM

My guess would be Drosera intermedia. Do you know the flower color? D. intermedia is a wide spread sundew specie ranging from Canada to South America. They go dormant further north of you when it gets cool.

Jon Werner

Homer1 Jan 03, 2004 09:21 PM

That was my guess as well. My sister brought it back from Florida, and I see vestiges of a white flower. It has AWESOME color!
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Homer W. Faucett III, esq.
Purveyor of Trivialities and Fine Nonsense

Arklier Jan 03, 2004 11:13 PM

>>That was my guess as well. My sister brought it back from Florida, and I see vestiges of a white flower. It has AWESOME color!

Hmm. I hope she didn't just pick it out of a bog somewhere. Many of these plants are endangered or threatened in the wild. It would be similar to going down to the Amazon on vacation and bringing home a few D. azureus or whatever other rare frog you care to name.

Homer1 Jan 03, 2004 11:21 PM

Nooooooo . . . she actually dug it out of my cousin's backyard. So, if she dug it off of the site where he was going to build his garage, that wouldn't be endangering a plant species, now would it?

That's the interesting irony about so much of what we deal with. Perhaps a species is endangered (which this particular one is not). We're more worried about someone taking an individual from a population and transporting it across state/country lines. However, we are not at all concerned about how every day life destroys the environment.

So, crucify me if you will, for collecting a non-threatened species similar to our grass in this neck of the woods. I just did with a shovel what was to be done with a backhoe in a few weeks. Perhaps you should think before speaking.
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Homer W. Faucett III, esq.
Purveyor of Trivialities and Fine Nonsense

gjuk Jan 04, 2004 09:32 AM

Sheild yer handbags ladies!

hehe, back on topic.

thats a mighty fine sundew you have there sir, have you put it in your dendrobatid viv ? how do the frogs like it ?

Thanks

Jonny
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0.0.3 Orange Splash Back Dart Frogs

England, UK
gjuk@ntlworld.com

Homer1 Jan 04, 2004 09:57 AM

Jonny, that's hillarious! Yes, I just placed them in two of my Dendro viv's last night. We'll see how they fare. I think they're gorgeous, and I've heard others say that sundews can do well in dart frog viv's. Since this one ranges so far south (down to around Miami, it looks like to me), I'm hoping that this one will not need to be removed for dormancy. However, I still have a few that are left unplanted, and I'm going to do some more research on cultivating these.

Thanks for the bit of levity. We need that every now and again. And yes, it is a pretty striking plant, isn't it? I was impressed!
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Homer W. Faucett III, esq.
Purveyor of Trivialities and Fine Nonsense

gjuk Jan 04, 2004 10:52 AM

glad you liked it hehe

sure is a pritty plant, i wish you sucess with it, keep us all posted please mate

Jonny
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0.0.3 Orange Splash Back Dart Frogs

England, UK
gjuk@ntlworld.com

Homer1 Jan 04, 2004 12:20 AM

I apologize if I came off a little strong. However, you must note that making suggestions of poaching is a serious issue that I don't take lightly. Anyone who knows me would understand that I don't condone such things, and I took it as a personal affront that you would suggest that this situation was similar to someone smuggling a Cites III animal out of the country. I feel it safe to say that most people would take your comment with indignity, particularly when you did not care to even ask the nature of the situation before making such insinuations, and without knowledge of the particular species in question. While I was not certain of the species when posting, I felt quite confident in my keying prior to posing. The additional information I left later gives you a better sense of the collecting situation.

Please note that generalized comments that are pointed and accusational in nature can be very dangerous, and few people are likely to take them well.

I apologize for the direct nature of my comment back to you. However, I emphatically deny your inappropriate insinuations.
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Homer W. Faucett III, esq.
Purveyor of Trivialities and Fine Nonsense

Arklier Jan 04, 2004 03:43 PM

>>I apologize if I came off a little strong. However, you must note that making suggestions of poaching is a serious issue that I don't take lightly. Anyone who knows me would understand that I don't condone such things, and I took it as a personal affront that you would suggest that this situation was similar to someone smuggling a Cites III animal out of the country. I feel it safe to say that most people would take your comment with indignity, particularly when you did not care to even ask the nature of the situation before making such insinuations, and without knowledge of the particular species in question. While I was not certain of the species when posting, I felt quite confident in my keying prior to posing. The additional information I left later gives you a better sense of the collecting situation.
>>
>>Please note that generalized comments that are pointed and accusational in nature can be very dangerous, and few people are likely to take them well.
>>
>>I apologize for the direct nature of my comment back to you. However, I emphatically deny your inappropriate insinuations.
>>-----

I wasn't insinuating anything. A lot of people don't know that many carnivorous plants are threatened in their wild habitats. If you think that it's inappropriate to point that out, then that's not my problem. As for me, I don't live in an area where carnivorous plants live, so there's not much I can do one way or the other about preserving them or their habitat.

Taking an endangered or threatened plant home is no different than taking an endangered or threatened animal home, no matter how many borders each crosses. If you live in North Carolina, why pay for a venus flytrap at the store when you can just dig one out of the bog for free? If you're going to the Amazon, why not take a few frogs home for the trip? The end result is the same. A threatened or endangered species was removed from its natural habitat.

If you thought I was pointing the finger directly at you, then you are mistaken. It was simply to let people know that it's not OK to go outside and dig up any carnivorous plant.

Homer1 Jan 04, 2004 12:47 AM

Sorry, I meant to say that I thought that it was either intermedia or capillaris. After studying pics, I'm pretty certain it's capillaris, the "pink sundew". The colors are amazing, and the flowers are supposed to be a light pink to white. It's really quite an amazing little CP.
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Homer W. Faucett III, esq.
Purveyor of Trivialities and Fine Nonsense

prems Jan 04, 2004 01:11 AM

I would say it's definitely NOT intermedia...intermedia has a bit of a stem and attains some (slight) vertical height, while other species (aside from D. filiformis) lay flat on the ground.

capilaris is a good guess.

---Prem

Homer1 Jan 04, 2004 09:51 AM

You're absolutely right. The color seemed like it might have been right for intermedia, but intermedia usually has some green on it. But, as you pointed out, one of the hallmarks of intermedia is that it holds its leaves rather vertically, while this one lies prostrate.

Thanks for your insight. Do you know of any others that might look similar? I found a pretty good list by the University of Florida which only showed about 4-5 that are native to Florida, and capillaris is described and pictured exactly like the one that I have. The others really didn't even look similar.
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Homer W. Faucett III, esq.
Purveyor of Trivialities and Fine Nonsense

Jon Werner Jan 04, 2004 11:05 AM

In referring to D'Amato's book, a quick way to find out observe how the plant returns. If you provide a cooling, capillaris returns from seed, where as intermedia will die down to a bud or bulb type of existence and return. Judging two similar specie type from picture can be very difficult. In contrast to your statement, many sundew have some degree of erectness in their leaves. Here in WA we have rotundifolia. I bass fish at a lake that has huge tracts of long fibered peat moss covered in rotundifolia. Thousands of them. In July they are very green and erect. In late August, next to no green is on the plant. It's an awesome site in an early August morning after a cool night to see fog/stream rising off the lake and a glistening all over the shore from thousands of sundew. I also grow sundew in my orchid greenhouse to help control fungus gnats. I have many D. adelae the are somewhat erect with 4 - 5" leaves on them. In their case though, I feel it is because of a lack of sunlight. For what its worth, the picture looked very much like the rotundifolia I see here in WA! Your guess is as good as mine!

Jon

Homer1 Jan 04, 2004 11:19 AM

Thanks for the info. I am certainly no expert on sundews, and this is my first attempt to keep sundews. I love the Savage Garden, but I wasn't able to quickly identify the sundew from the books descriptions. Actually, I have a lowland Nepenthes species that I bought from Lowe's which I can't identify from the book either.

Since it's really not a keying book, that's not a criticism, because it is a great book for its intent. Given the distribution ranges of the species listed on the UF website, I currently feel pretty comfortable with calling this capillaris. The written descriptions and pics also fit this plant pretty well, and intermedia did not. Additionally, intermedia is not known to exist in the part of Florida where my cousin lives (at least according to the maps and data given there).
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Homer W. Faucett III, esq.
Purveyor of Trivialities and Fine Nonsense

kyle1745 Jan 04, 2004 12:30 PM

Looks very cool, let us know how it does in the tank. What tank do you have it in? In with frogs?
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Kyle
www.kylesphotos.com
Dart Links - still a work in progress
1.2.0 D. leucomelas
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