New carnivorous plant discovered, right under our noses

Originally published at: New carnivorous plant discovered, right under our noses | Boing Boing

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I’m on my phone right now taking a look at this plant and I think this is another example of overfunded scientists making things up for the grant money.

I’ll prove it. I’ll just grab one of these stalks and on closer examination I’m sure there won’t be any exoskel

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I have a carnivorous plant at home :slight_smile: it is a wide leaf sundew, it’s been flowering for the past month or so. It’s been a real treat watching it thrive and put out several flower spikes.

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I just found this phone lying next to a bog and it was open to this page. By any chance does anyone know who this belongs to? I’d like to return it to the owner if I could.

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It’s a plant. :wink:

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I read the headline as, New coronavirus plant discovered, and thought, now what?

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By any chance is that a Drosera capensis? If so I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve already gotten seeds. I know some growers with large collections who snip the flower spikes as soon as they appear or else new ones will pop up in surrounding pots.

I think that’s part of the fun of growing them. I bought another kind of sundew from a place that ships potted plants and when it arrived there was a tiny D. capensis sprouting in the corner.

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Unpaywalled, it’s here:
e2022724118.full.pdf (1.2 MB)

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Yep that’s the kind, and once the first flower spike stopped flowering i snipped it and saved it in a ziplock bag wrapped in a paper towel for it to dry out. I’ll be doing the same with the other flower spikes, i’m really hoping i got seeds! Also what other sundews do you have? Any that are as easy to care for like the one i got?

Edit:
This is how it looked when i first got it

Here it is now

The moss hasn’t fared well but the plant has been thriving

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9 feet tall and they can uproot themselves and walk around? Why isn’t this on all the media outlets?

I axe yous…

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Unfortunately I lost my entire collection to a double attack of aphids and whitefly a few years ago and haven’t had the heart to rebuild but found most sundews really easy to grow. Other than D. capensis I had a lot of luck with D. aliciae, which is bright red and grows low to the ground, and D. adelae which likes it warmer and more humid even than most other sundews but also spreads out with long narrow leaves.

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That must be why I no longer have a nose

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That’s terrible, sorry to hear that. Hope you have a chance to get some more in the near future! If i get some seeds from my flower spike i could send you some.

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All this time it was telling people it was vegan, but it was secretly eating bugs on the sly… sheesh!

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How do you smell?

(They asked the same about my nasally deficient dog.)

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Like a plant just puked me out

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