Give Away Drosera Leaf Propagation Question and Contest/Giveaway

[RandyS]

I have a pretty basic Drosera leaf propagation question, although it might be a pretty extreme example.

I'm curious if a leaf cutting, having once produced plantlets, can produce more if they are removed?

In this case, it's a cutting which very vigorously produced plantlets already. The leaf cutting itself may be going downhill, I'm not sure.

The plant in question is Drosera Big Pink x Hercules (from Blackfeather666). He sent the leaf cutting in a returned coin case (see my post on sending plant material for a single stamp). It got delayed for 10 days by USPS, but still arrived in good condition:



After 8 weeks in water it looked like this:



I potted up the plantlets yesterday, and they look great. There are ten. Several had broken off the leaf, so I broke them all off and potted them in sphagnum and put them under more intense lighting. I expect the color to intensify and hopefully they root and grow quickly.



And here's what's left of the leaf cutting:



So the question is: will this produce any more plantlets? Obviously, this an extreme example of a plant that's easy from leaf cuttings. I don't see any signs of anything starting now, and it looks like the left side may be dying already.

So I'm looking for opinions and guesses.

Guess a number of plantlets that actually grow, and keep all of those plantlets (for postage). If two or more people guess the same, I'll let a random number generator decide.

Guess zero and I'll send one or two of the existing plantlets (for postage) once they get a little bigger. Again, a random number pick if more than one person picks zero.

I expect postage to be about $5, and hopefully I can include other things.

I'm leaning toward zero, but I'm really amazed at how vigorous this cutting was. It would be sad for it to just die after this.

This should be an impressive Drosera hybrid, but I'm unable to find a photo. If anyone has one, please post. Hercules is thought to be D. aliciae x D. capensis alba, so the hybrid is Drosera capensis 'Big Pink' x (D. aliciae x D. capensis Alba), or 1/4 D. aliciae, 3/4 D. capensis, with large cultivars as the two immediate parents.

 

[RandyS]

It just occurred to me that by breaking off the plantlets, some of the tissue at the base of the plantlet (even if undetectable) could have remained on the leaf cutting. If so, that might be an obvious place for a "new" plantlet to regenerate. That would be interesting. I'm no longer leaning towards zero.

 

[Grey Moss]

Yeah, as long as there is free glandular leaf surface more plantlets can show up. You quickly run into the practical issue of the leaf aging out and dying however. In practice, the crop of plantlets that show up initially is probably all you're getting.

 

[RandyS]

Yeah, as long as there is free glandular leaf surface more plantlets can show up. You quickly run into the practical issue of the leaf aging out and dying however. In practice, the crop of plantlets that show up initially is probably all you're getting.

It will be a race I suspect. But this hybrid seems unusually vigorous, so we'll see.

I've seen D. capensis plantlets appear on petioles, although I don't have any on this cutting.

I was surprised to see it on a number of these: D. capensis Red. Some have a bit of leaf blade at the end. Others are petiole only:



The Drosera capensis 'Big Pink' x D. 'Hercules' hybrid photo with relatively large plantlets was taken at 2 months. The photo above of the D. capensis cuttings above with much smaller and fewer plantlets was taken at 2 1/2 months. The difference in vigor between the two is striking.