using a plant press for CP pitchers/flowers

[monkey_Cup]

i have a personal project i am working on, nothing scientific, and thought a pitcher or two from nepenthes or sarrs might be cool. I was wondering if they pressed well or if it would be a waste of my time. Also i know its to late this years, but anyone ever press sarr flowers? Thanks for any input.

monkey_Cup

 

[Eric]

I have pressed a few Sarracenia pitchers with success. The key is to use either a drying oven or a really hot dry place like your car trunk for a few weeks. Not sure how a Nepenthes would turn out. Good luck and keep us posted!

 

[swords]

For Nepenthes I have seen them stuffed with cotton & allowed to dry. This way they can dry in 3D. Then you can display them in a shadowbox a couple inches deep instead of a flat frame.

 

[SerMuncherIV]

I've pressed individual components of Sarr flowers separately, but never the whole thing.

 

[sflynn]

Look up Sarracenia on this site: http://florida.plantatlas.usf.edu/

Tons of Sarracenia specimens for you to compare how plant pressing works.

 

[monkey_Cup]

very nice, thanks for the info

 

[NemJones]

For sarracenia pitchers, I stuff them with toilet paper then put them somewhere extremely dry, like a pile of newspaper.
Havent tried nepenthes, but im sure a cotton stuffign like others said would do very well.

I have also heard of people using salt/damprid for instant mummification.

 

[Dragoness]

From my own experience, if you press them, they retain color, but not shape. If you dry them without pressing, they retain shape but not color.

I press Pitchers and fly traps with some frequency, and good results. Haven't tried a sarracenia flower yet though. They seem a bit thick to press well.

 

[sflynn]

Sarr flowers take a lot to press well, many botanists actually take them apart when pressing them so that you can see all the parts of the flower and so it will look nice in a herbarium.

 

[monkey_Cup]

great info, thanks for all the replys and gives me something to work with

 

[NemJones]

From my own experience, if you press them, they retain color, but not shape. If you dry them without pressing, they retain shape but not color.

I press Pitchers and fly traps with some frequency, and good results. Haven't tried a sarracenia flower yet though. They seem a bit thick to press well.

I was able to save some color on a few of my pitchers without losing the color.
I think it has something to do with the speed of drying, but im not sure As ive only done it once.

 

[Dragoness]

Maybe I should dump some silica gel into a pitcher and see what happens.

 

[thez_yo]

Oh, I actually recently pressed a few things - here are my results:
not in direct sun

direct sun so you can sort of see the colours

 

[thez_yo]

Orchids that are white don't press well at all, btw. They just disappear, or turn a terrible shade of brown.