Nepenthes mirabilis

[THUNDERSTORM]

Hello
I've been growing successfully a N. mirabilis var. echinostoma since two days ago. Suddenly the whole plant collapsed and the leaves dried. what a tragedy

!!!!!!!
I did five cuttings but I'm asking to mysefl why it is happened......I really don't know what it happened.
can anyone help me??

 

[schloaty]

Hi Thunderstorm,
Two days doesn't really indicate successful growing....
Can you describe the conditions you have the plant in?

 

[The Griffin]

So, you were growing this great(big enough to get five cuttings at least) for some time, and then two days ago, it just collapsed, is that right?
Yes, conditions would be most helpful. Barring the obvious "forgetting to water", sounds like something affected the plants ability to hydrate. After cutting the plant up, did you look at the roots?

Cheers,

Joe

 

[swords]

Hi well, if you've only had the plant 2 days it may not be that crazy to have a very thin leaved species like N. mirabilis "crash" after changing the environment. It would not have died but the leaves produced in the original greenhouse or wherever will not be acclimated to your house/terrarium or windowsill. Nepenthes DO NOT LIKE CHANGE and everytime you move your plant to a new grow space it will take a good length of time for it to acclimate during which it may look almost dead. Just keep giving it proper light, temps, water and humidity (no way around it) and it will likely come back.

Now, if you've had the plant for a long time and two days ago it started dying my thoughts would be:
1)  what kind of water are you watering with, if not Reverse Osmosis or distilled then the water you are using may not be pure enough and the salts and minerals in the water had finally compounded on the roots and deprived the plant of water even though you keep pouring water in the pot.
2) your potting is very old and had soured and poisoned the plant.
3) do your fertilize with any orchid type fertilizers (urea free Grow More for example)? Even though these specialist fertilizers are far gentler on plants than standard miracle grow they can still damage plants if used recklessly.

 

[THUNDERSTORM]

thanks for your replies...
I bought this nep time ago and it has been growing really exuberant (10 cm also during the winter months). The whole plant was 27 cm tall, with 20 cm long leaves.
I never saw a nep dieing so quickly. I think this plant may suffer due to small pots, but I don't think a small pot can kill a nep so fast. It was an adult nep, the pot was big enough.The soil mix was 40% perlite, 40% peat and 20% bark. I exclude wrong climatic conditions 'cos other plants also were near this nep (N.copelandii, N. distillatoria, N.ventricosa, N.bicalcarata, and they are beautiful) with 22 degrees during the day and 19 degrees during the night.

 

[DerbyCityNeps]

Quote[/b] ]with 22 degrees during the day and 19 degrees during the night.

i hope you mean celsius

. your nep could have been suffering for a LONG time. it may have just conserved its energy then gave it off in one big burst. i think this should be called SNDS(sudden nepenthes death syndrome)

 

[THUNDERSTORM]

I watered this nep with reverse osmosis water.After have been cutting the plant, I looked at the roots, but they were about six normal roots.one of that was so long (40 cm).they were healty, not rotted or dried.

 

[THUNDERSTORM]

SNDS?oh

I know, I know.......but how it is possible that a nep grows exuberant?if a nep gets SNDS can really die so quicklyit was a healty plants, not a feeble plant...

 

[jimscott]

Hi Thunderstorm and welcome to TerraForums! Is it possible that something toxic accidently gotten into the media?

Hmmm..... isn't there someone called Rainydays and other called Cloudydays on this forum? Are you into Meteorology?

 

[FedeAbra]

Hi. A friend of mine had the same identical problem. It seems to be reading him instead of you. He had a mirabilis echinostoma, tall as yours. Some days ago,3 or 4, the plant dried the leaves and the growing point started to rot. He did 5 cuttings as you did and, during the repotting, he saw that one root was really long, maybe 60cm.
He found out that N. echinostoma does like to stand in water and that the plant growed that long root to find it. Someone said that it is true that echinostoma is the only nepenthes which likes to stand in water, but I can't still believe it....

these are some pictured of the plant and the repotting:


http://www.piantecarnivore.org/pics/febbraio06/mirabilis1.jpg
http://www.piantecarnivore.org/pics/febbraio06/mirabilis2.jpg
http://www.piantecarnivore.org/pics/febbraio06/mirabilis3.jpg

 

[swords]

Are your R/O filter cartridges up to date? If the water quality is not the issue and the soil never totally dries and no sudden humidity drops I would say a toxic soil condition probably occured. Perhaps it became too compacted and created noxious conditions. Do you use peat? My neps die in peat because of my conditions and watering schedule but they do wonderful is LFS and fine bark chips. I don't believe in the "mystery death" syndrome it happened for a reason you have to identify why so you can avoid it from ever happening again.

 

[Cindy]

N. mirabilis' thin leaves and its need to be in standing water is related. The transpiration rate is high and thus its water uptake is high. I have N. mirabilis (not echinostoma) in humidity more than 50% but because the area is windy, I have to water it twice a day compared to once for the rest of the neps.

 

[wezx]

So N. mirabilis can be water by tray method?

 

[THUNDERSTORM]

oh yes
I know nep mirabilis needs much water.I used the tray method, like a sarracenia.In nature it grows in swamps.of course, I used peat, perlite and bark.

 

[FedeAbra]

Are you saying that water was not the problem? We must think at something else...

 

[wezx]

So all thin leaf neps like viking and mirabillis can be grown with tray method? The root rotting/waterlogged theory do not apply to these? This is really interresting, if its true i can save a few minutes of watering time

 

[MrAga73]

Hello to all!
My great teacher, Macello Catalano also had serveral problems like this one.
There are some nepenthes that really need big space for its roots!
When I told ( speaking on phone ) to Thunderstorm to check the roots I really get wondered that there was an unique long root of 62 cm in only 18 cm of high pot!!!!
The plant is collapsed because it could not find any water and the roots started to get crazy growing in so long size in a little space.
So they died. And the plant also begun to die!
For my point of view...the ROOTS are the BRAIN of the plant and if the BRAIN DIES the whole plants also continue to die without solutions.
There are also more difficult plants : some nepenthes...if they ONLY realize that they cannot geet deeper into soil they die immediately!!!
So keep yourself always informed about how really a plants love to live in nature!
Nepenthes mirabilis loves to have tray water and to be kept very wet all the year.
The very long roots developed WAS a CONSEQUENCE of poor (only for mirabilis echinostoma )watering during winter.
The plant was anyway growing better before to die because there was more light into thunderstorm apartment.The leafes were bigger and begun to ask more food to the roots that were already in difficulties from some months.
understood?
Mr_Aga
Milan - ITALY