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U. monathos

jimscott

Tropical Fish Enthusiast
I was sent a pinch of U. monathos and I am now seeing two stalks. I was told that this is a form of U. dichotoma. Does anybody know?
 
Depends on who you ask. Taylor classifies this as a species in its own right but a majority of others say it is just a sub form of dichotoma.

One thing I would like to note is that there are a number of bogus monathos floating around. The key trait in identifying monathos is that the flower stalks are very short, only an inch or two off the ground. They also tend to only put out a single bloom per stalk but that is not an absolute (and dichotoma is known to put out one bloom though it is mostly known for 2, hence di-).

If the stalks on your plant get tall then please re-label it as dichotoma and inform the person you got it from of the mistake as well. I am trying my 4th supposed monathos now and to be truthful it gets old having to change labels
 
Thanks Travis, will do. So far one stalk is emerging and the other is ~6".
 
Theres also one other thing, U.monathos is hardy while U.dichotoma is not
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Starman @ Aug. 24 2005,2:38)]Theres also one other thing, U.monathos is hardy while U.dichotoma is not
That is not entirely true. I have, on numerous occasions, exopsed almost all of my terrestrials to below freezing temperatures, even getting as low as -10. None of my dichotoma clones suffered any ill effects.
 
Having seen both U. dichotoma and U. monanthos growing in the wild on many occasions, I feel comfortable in naming U. monanthos merely a variety of U. dichotoma. As far as I am concerned, U. dichotoma var. monanthos is merely an alpine form of U. dichotoma with short flowerscapes as an adaptation to cope with cold winds and to keep close to the warmer substrate.

To say that U. dichotoma is not hardy and will not cope with cold temps is incorrect as recently some friends found a form of U. dichotoma growing well above the snowline, several hundred metres higher up the mountain than what U. dichotoma var. monanthos was. Many other forms will also grow cool. Actually, I have found that most forms grow better with a coldish winter.

Jim, as Travis has said, if your plant has 6 inch flowerscapes it is not U. dichotoma var. monanthos.
 
How may I safely refer to it?
 
Well if it is not the monanthos form with single flowers and very short scapes. Then it is simply U. dichotoma

With respect to the monanthos form. Some people say they ALL should be labelled simply as U. dichotoma. I disagree with them and agree with Sean that a distinction should be maintained. Personally I feel U. dichotoma ssp. monanthos is sufficient.
 
  • #10
U. dichotoma it is! The topic was a dichotomy!
smile_m_32.gif
 
  • #11
I list mine as Utricularia dichotoma "Monathos", and feel that is sufficient. Between Peter Taylor's and Sean's opinions it would be a little silly to think otherwise.

My U. dichotoma survive occasional winter freezes just fine.
 
  • #12
When I update my grow list, I will call it just that. Thanks.
 
  • #13
The article that adresses U. monanthos (as well as U. novae-zealandia) as synonyms for U. dichotoma is this:

http://www.rsnz.org/publish/nzjb/1999/25.php

I have read the full article and it seems convincing enough.

That being said, the specimen of U. monanthos that I used to have is completely different that a standard U. dichotoma. There is a picture on my website (www.islandnet.com/~tmalcolm) that shows a whole plant. You can see by the realtive size of the leaves in the picture that it is really small.

Lowrie lists hollow petioles as a distinctive feature of U. monanthos. Another interesting feature is the length of the leaves. They usually came right from the very bottom of the pot. A bit of a challenge when trying to carve out section to send to someone.

However, Reut and Fineran say that U monanthos is just a small specimen of the highly variable species U dichotoma.
 
  • #14
Thank Tim. I just checked your website - again - and I'm pretty confident that I just have a plain old dichotoma. This morning I checked it out and the flower stalk is ~9" and I can see the emergence of a flower, which will presumably open up tomorrow.
 
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