My Baby Cephalotus follicularis

[dionae]

Heres my new Cephalotus that I received today. Beautiful lil thing. Hopefully, with a lil care and patience she'll be a lot bigger this time next year. Happy about this one.

 

[UnstuckinTime]

Very nice! Getting your first Cephalotus is a big step, in my mind. Then again, I started out with "beginner" plants and idolized the day when I would be experienced enough to get something challenging, like a Cephalotus.

A word of advice, if I may- With a specimen so small, I would feel uncomfortable with all that moss growing around, and would take tweezers to weed it all away. Im sure other growers would say not to worry about it.

Its definitely a healthy one, you are off on a good foot!

CJ

 

[TheFury]

You know, that's funny - I got a baby Cephalotus just a few weeks ago and was worried about the same thing. I ended up taking tweezers to the moss. Hope I didn't disturb the plant's roots too much. Anyway, this guy hasn't shown any signs of growth yet. Anyone know about baby Cephalotus growth rates? Are they particularly slow?

Congrats on your new Cephalotus. Hope you enjoy it!

Here's mine!

 

[dionae]

Thank you very much UT....for the tip and stopping by. Just so you know...I am a beginner. I've only had CPs for a couple months. There are only a few that have really caught my eye and thats VFTs, Sarracenia purpurea and Cephalotus follicularis. I have all three now and i'm content.

Don't get me wrong. I love all of the other CPs and have a couple Drosera (recently acquired), Sarracenia and a Nepenthes but i'll prob just focus on the three mentioned above mainly.

I've tried reading more than asking questions and I hope i'm prepared to keep her alive.

---------- Post added at 07:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:03 PM ----------

Thats beautiful TF! Congrats and i hope she picks up in the growth dept for you.

If you don't mind me asking, what is her environment like?

 

[TheFury]

Thanks! I too am a beginner. I've been growing for 9 months or so but I've really sucked at it until about 2 months ago. And even now my skill is debatable...

Anyway, I'm a bit concerned about the plant. You can see the pitcher at the lower left on the second pic is sort of... soupy. Hopefully this isn't a systemic problem; hopefully the pitcher just died as part of normal growth.

My conditions: I have the plant in a grow rack about 3" from some 48" T8 bulbs at 32 watts each. My grow rack consists of four of these bulbs, 2x GE 4100K cool white bulbs and 2x ZooMed Flora Sun grow bulbs. Temperatures indoors this time of year range between 70-75 during the day and 60-70 at night depending on whether the radiators are running. A bit chilly right now. Humidity is around 55% during the day and up to 80% at night.

How about yours?

 

[sarracenia21]

Nice pics I knew you would get one sooner or later

 

[amphirion]

the reason why Cephalotus follicularis were initially so elusive was because of the fact that they are indeed slow growers. leaf cuttings could take months up to a year to strike, and even then, they move at a snails pace. growing from seed is even slower, which is why most Cephalotus in circulation are divisions or leaf cuttings since those are relatively faster than seed grown individuals. good luck with that Cephalotus! be sure to keep it well ventilated!

and one more thing: DO NOT, i repeat DO NOT allow under any circumstances let the crown/growth point get wet for prolonged periods. if it gets wet it will end up rotting.

 

[dionae]

How about yours?

I really haven't decided rather I want to keep her where shes at under a HID and a T5 or put her under some CFLs and T5. I'm cleaning out my other aquarium atm so i'll answer you in a couple days.

Nice pics I knew you would get one sooner or later

Thanks! I'm just glad it was sooner than later.

DO NOT, i repeat DO NOT allow under any circumstances let the crown/growth point get wet for prolonged periods. if it gets wet it will end up rotting.

Than you very much for the tip!

 

[mass]

I'd leave the moss.. Right about the time they get buried in it they'll start growing out of it. When a Cephalotus follicularis comes into new conditions, they pretty much stop growing.. and even back peddle a bit. But once acclimated (3+ weeks of waiting).. they will pick up where they left off.
And amp is right about the "prolonged" moisture. In the hot summer months I mist my Cephalotus once a day, which seems to excel their growth rate! Could be due to not letting them over heat during the day. Who knows.. Just a light misting though, nothing heavy.

 

[dionae]

Thanks for the info MM!

 

[dionae]

Lil over a week after getting her and i'm very confident i'll keep her healthy. My environment is anywhere from 70-78 temp, 63-71% humidity lights on and 63-68 temp, 90-100%(rarely 100%) humidity lights off. I have the Cephalotus follicularis right in front of my fan getting most of the air. Haven't watered her since I got her but I gave her a light trich misting. Seems like I have 2 lil pitchers already starting to grow and color coming out on the pitcher that was all green.

I keep her on 18/6 under a 70w HPS. Her and my Nepenthes are in the same enviro and I haven't ran into any problems at all. Knock on wood.

 

[dionae]

Update

Love this lil thing. Going to buy another one in the next few weeks. I had to pull up a lil of the moss after I took these pics. It was starting to block light a lil.

So anxious to see what she looks like in a few months.

 

[mass]

HEY ALRIGHT!! Congrats on the new growth. It looks rather happy..

 

[dionae]

Thanks MM!

 

[mobile]

Baby Cephalotus are cute and nowhere as difficult to keep/grow as people make out. I have broken many of the 'rules' and thus far never lost a plant. They are slow growers but given the right conditions it's possible to get a leaf cutting to adult pitcher in approximately two years. Is your HID a metal halide? I find metal halide lighting far superior to any fluorescents. The penetration of light and spectral distribution is better.

 

[dionae]

My HID is actually a HPS. I have a mystery Nepenthes from Lowes right beside the ceph and shes putting out new pitchers too. They seem to like the HPS better than the T5 I had them under. Growth has really taken off on both plants since the switch.

 

[mobile]

I've never used HPS, my lamp is MH. However, I know that HPS is used by commercial growers. I find that my plants grow much better under MH than fluorescent. In fact, if a plant isn't growing as well as it should under fluorescents I usually put it under the MH to give it a boost.

 

[dionae]

The light is a lot more intense and deeper penetrating with HIDs than Fluoros. Fluoros are good if you cant control temps but if you can control temps imo you'd be better off with a HID, HPS or MH.

 

[WildBill]

Hi Dionae -

Good thing to keep the moss trimmed. I've lost a few that got suffocated once when I got really busy. Once the tiny pitchers are large enough I've found that feeding with Betta Fish pellets really help young Cephalotus follicularis get going.

I used to buy something called BettaBioGold, teeny 1/16th round pellets but they changed their formulation so now I look for similar sized but better ingredient formulation.

 

[dionae]

Thank you very much for the tips WildBill!