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Cephalotus Propagation, no, "Patience" . . .

Cephalotus Propagation -- No, "Patience" . . .

At one point during the NASC auction this year, a generous donor had offered leaf pullings from her Cephalotus "Hummer's Giant" and had accounted at how she had been surprised when a leaf struck after four or five weeks -- though she had also mentioned that another cutting took over four months . . .

Here then is the case for having extreme patience . . .

in 2005, a friend who had a particularly vigorous Cephalotus "Hummer's Giant" which consistently produced almost 8 cm (3.14") leaves, offered me some cuttings if I would, in turn, propagate a few small plants -- something which had always posed a frustration to him. It was an offer I could not refuse. He received his newly-rooted cuttings after about a month or so; those which remained under my care -- and which had been grown under identical circumstances as the others -- took a year to even strike, almost to the day. I had been sorely tempted to toss out the whole batch out of frustration on more than a few occasions.

They are finally producing their first adult pitchers this summer . . .

HG-ONE.jpg


HGTHREE.jpg
 
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The photos still don't show.
 
Very nice I wish I could get my hands on one of those =)

I just got this baby ceph yesterday but its a typical
P7020009.jpg


Can't wait for it to grow adult pitchers in maybe 1-2 years hopefully, but its on a windowsill so I hope it stay alright
 
What was the propagation method? I did try some cutting too but so far i only had succes with root divisions.
 
The plants pictured were from leaf-pullings. The important part is to get a bit of the rhizome -- white -- tissue where the leaf attaches. I get about ninety percent success rate with that. I generally use Rootone or Clonex, according to directions in a compost of peat, perlite, sand, and charcoal in a (2:1:1:1) ratio -- but everyone has their favorite.

Pictured below is a plant I began five years back from a division of a plant I gave to someone in 1982. In the ensuing twenty some-odd years, it went from SF to LA to Padova, Italy, and back in a DHL envelope. All that arrived were several five centimeter lengths of brown rhizome in sphagnum. The one Euro coin for scale is the size of a quarter . . .


What was the propagation method? I did try some cutting too but so far i only had succes with root divisions.

CEPH.jpg
 
Maybe the leaf pullings that i took were to small....is there a minimum size? Mine were only 1/2" long.
I was wondering about your connections to the italians....BigBella.
Thank you for the info!
 
The size of the leaves didn't seem to matter; rather, it was more the age. In my experience, mature vegetative leaves worked the best, followed by the pitchers (with about 50% success). It was more important getting a bit of that leaf base which has the germinal tissue and will callus or root . . .



Maybe the leaf pullings that i took were to small....is there a minimum size? Mine were only 1/2" long.
I was wondering about your connections to the italians....BigBella.
Thank you for the info!
 
I've always had difficulty pulling off a leaf or a pitcher. Especially so if it's a mature one. I end up snapping the growing stem off with the pitcher. Then you see me running around doing the Indian war dance for 10 minutes in disbelief of what I've done.

You guys have any tricks to pulling off a leaf or pitcher without breaking the whole stem into two? Granted I break it off usually I end up with something that strikes so I have two plants instead of one. But really that wasn't my intention.

I've never tried leaves because I don't have many of them on my plants but pitchers do seem to work well. I chucked some of them in to live Moss and three out of five of them struck. Two of them within a month and the third one within three months. The funny thing is they're sitting on a tray of water which is supposed to be absolutely taboo when it comes to this species. But the tray water was there to keep my Moss alive. The pitchers went in as an afterthought and I have not tried to dig them out.
 
The simplest and most successful method to obtain a good leaf pulling is to grasp the end of the vegetative or pitcher leaf, hold that in place, and to use an object such as a coffee stirring stick to gently press down at the leaf base. The entire leaf along with a bit of rhizome tissue will easily detach.

I was amazed to actually find that there were photographic instructions on how to accomplish this at:

http://www.aqph26.dsl.pipex.com/index.html

As far as the successes you've had in propagation, I don't think that that is unusual. I have had strikes on leaves simply floating in RO / distilled water or in zip-lock bags of live sphagnum. There are simply far too many myths and misconceptions circulating about the "difficulty" of growing Cephalotus. All of my plants are watered by the shallow tray method and I have yet to experience any problems. I let the trays evaporate, then pour in a bit more water . . .

Also, every two years or so, I unpot even the largest of my plants, divide the rhizome or offshoot and replant it without the immediate death so often bandied about with Cephalotus and any root disturbance. Just handle it delicately. No salad spinner is used to remove compost from the roots . . .

Here is one of my larger plants with 5.7 cm (2.25") pitchers which is coming back nicely this Summer after one of those notorious die-backs Cephalotus can undergo -- back in September of 2007.

I think that it will just be fine . . .

CF--GIANT.jpg
 
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  • #10
I've always had difficulty pulling off a leaf or a pitcher. Especially so if it's a mature one. I end up snapping the growing stem off with the pitcher. Then you see me running around doing the Indian war dance for 10 minutes in disbelief of what I've done.

You guys have any tricks to pulling off a leaf or pitcher without breaking the whole stem into two? Granted I break it off usually I end up with something that strikes so I have two plants instead of one. But really that wasn't my intention.

I've never tried leaves because I don't have many of them on my plants but pitchers do seem to work well. I chucked some of them in to live Moss and three out of five of them struck. Two of them within a month and the third one within three months. The funny thing is they're sitting on a tray of water which is supposed to be absolutely taboo when it comes to this species. But the tray water was there to keep my Moss alive. The pitchers went in as an afterthought and I have not tried to dig them out.

More on patience . . .

I took a few leaf pulls back in June, along with a division and a bit of rhizome of one of my larger "Hummer" plants -- and it was ironically the most modest of leaves which first showed new growth today, one that I didn't even anticipate surviving.

It is truly safe to say that Cephalotus does everything on its own time-table . . .

CFB.jpg


CF-A.jpg
 
  • #11
At one point during the NASC auction this year, a generous donor had offered leaf pullings from his Cephalotus "Hummer's Giant" and had accounted at how he had been surprised when a leaf struck after four or five weeks -- though he had mentioned that another cutting took over four months . . .

Hehe That "he" was a "she"....me. :p :rolleyes:

Yep...'tis true. Two leaf pulls at exactly the same time grown in exactly the same pot/conditions...VERY different strike rate.

Even more odd...after a looooooooong time, I finally removed the totally shriveled, blackened parent leaf from one of the young plants. I thought I threw it out but apparently I just tossed it aside. Image my shock when I saw another speck of green in my "nursery". A magnifying glass revealed the seemingly dead leaf struck on its own! I even tugged on the leaf to see if maybe the new baby was a runner...but nope. It was firmly anchored to the "dead" black leaf. Imagine that! I got a third plant purely by accident.

Cephs are mercurial critters...
 
  • #12
I've always had difficulty pulling off a leaf or a pitcher. Especially so if it's a mature one. I end up snapping the growing stem off with the pitcher. Then you see me running around doing the Indian war dance for 10 minutes in disbelief of what I've done.

You guys have any tricks to pulling off a leaf or pitcher without breaking the whole stem into two? Granted I break it off usually I end up with something that strikes so I have two plants instead of one. But really that wasn't my intention . . .

Here are a few cuttings of Cephalotus cv. "Hummer's Giant" that have struck since 6 June. This season, my success ran at about eighty percent -- higher if you consider multiple strikes. Not terribly bad. Yet, these are the only results of almost four months time (the photos were taken this afternoon) -- yet another reason why these plants are still rather costly in cultivation and difficult to obtain.

My tomatoes have already produced sizable fruit from the tiniest of plants just eighty days ago . . .

Oh, well . . .

CEPHCUTTINGS.jpg
 
  • #13
Here are a few cuttings of Cephalotus cv. "Hummer's Giant" that have struck since 6 June. This season, my success ran at eighty percent -- higher if you consider multiple strikes. Not terribly bad. Yet, here are the only results of nearly four months time (the photos were taken this afternoon) -- yet another clear reason why these plants are still rather costly in cultivation and difficult to obtain.

My tomatoes have already produced sizable fruit from the tiniest of plants just eighty days ago . . .

Oh, well . . .

CEPHCUTTINGS.jpg



Aww, they are just babies! :D
 
  • #14
This was started in a swampy tray of live LFS:

IMG_4309.jpg


...something like this:

Picture113.jpg


I also start VFT leaves, D. binata, D. filiformis, and seeds.
 
  • #15
and now it is 2013:great post !
 
  • #16
Wow, that is quite the blast from the past . . .

While I still will plant the occasional leaf pulling -- generally during repotting -- more time is now involved in micropropagation, which is a far, far faster alternative -- especially where my marked lack of "patience" is involved . . .

Cephalotus follicularis "Eden Black x Self"
 
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