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Cant' get P. laueana to bloom

Hey all,

I have done well growing P. laueana but can not get it to bloom. The plants appear very healthy, and I've gotten several new plants from leaf pullings I've taken over the last year, but never, ever a bloom.

I grow it in a wardian case at about 60% humidity, although I just sealed it a bit the other day so humidity is up to about 70% now. I have a florescent light on about 15-16 hours a day. It's one of the Lights of America spotlights and is about a foot above the plants. I have reduced the light a couple of hours in the winter, and increased it again in the summer to give it some seasons.

Any suggestions? I've been told it flowers very freely and doesn't need to go dormant, although mine did the first couple of years I had it.

Stephen Davis
www.bacps.org
www.carnivorousplants.homestead.com
www.eaglesroost.net
www.carnivorousplants.homestead.com
 
Stephen,
Don't feel too bad. I have the same problem, and I've been growing several clones of this species for many years. I have yet to see a single flower from my own plants. Here is what a few look like right now:
P_laueana_group_AA.jpg


I have tried many different things to inspire flowers, still nothing.
 
I was able to flower one of my clones this past winter. It had one bloom that sprang up from the winter rosette.
I belive this species needs the season change. Could be both light and temps.
It may be difficult to bloom for those who grow indoors under lights.
Are there any under light growers out there who have been able to bloom P. laueana?
Peter.
 
When I was complaining about my Mexican butterworts, in general, refusing to flower, of the many theories posed, the one thing that rang true was that I wasn't providing a cold / dry winter season for them. This year I am attempting to do so and we'll see what happens. But as pingman suggested, I would at least try that or at least try a variety of approaches if you have more than one plant.
 
Hurrah, I finally have, what appears to be the issue of a healthy flower bud from the winter-form rosette of one of my Pinguicula laueana plants. I attribute this to having mounted an evaporative cooler in the window of my CP grow room. I did this in late summer. While summer was still hot, I used this cooler to cool and humidify incoming air and force it through the plant room, out through the house and exit through distant windows. This made it possible to cool the plants, the house, and discontinue running the refrigerated air conditioner, which cooled the air and removed the moisture from it at the same time. After the summer heat had subsided, I continued to maintain the cooler pads in a wetted manner, and placed variable speed fans in windows on the opposite end of the house, in order to draw cool, outside air through the cooler's wetted pads, and through the grow room. For the first time, temperatures in the grow room regularly dropped into the 50'sF (10C). Many growth changes were noticed with some of the Mexican Pinguicula, which I attribute to this temperature change. For me one of the best responses, has been the initiation of a flower bud on a large, healthy, Pinguicula laueana plant which is in winter-leaf form. I have learned many things about Mexican Pinguicula which I plan to write about soon. An interesting item is that they do not all respond to the same seasonal clues to shift them from winter to summer leaf form and vice versa. BTW, drying them has never proved to be of any benefit, except when trying to strike leaf-pullings.
 
Congratulations, Joseph! I don't have enough experience to say so, but I was wondering if species like P. agnata, which is homophyllous, might be less responsive to seasonal variation. Can correlation be causality in this case? BTW, just to add to my own confusion about Mexican pings and flowering, half of my collection is residing on window sills that are in an unheated stairway. Some of them are forming winter rosettes. The one called P. moranensis (huautla) x ehlersiae hasn't changed to winter leaves and is also flowering. In the kitchen are several more pings, room temp, with most of them displaying the summer leaves. And yet, the one called P. reticulata is flowering. I really don't know why any of these phenomena are occurring!
biggrin.gif


Here's a P. potosiensis in winter leaf mode, flowering:

Strausplants0281.jpg



<span style='color:red'>[Edit: Your post has been edited to improve its value as an archive and to help others understand more precisely which plants you are writing about. You can read more about the details of writing plant names at Plant Names Thread.]</span>
 
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