New Stewart McPherson Books

[dvg]

I just picked up my copies of 'Carnivorous Plants and their Habitats Vol. 1 & Vol. 2' a couple of days ago.

Once again I am very impressed with the 1442 pages of carnivorous plant genera spread out over the two tomes in this latest offering.

Of interest to me was the 34 pages of text, photos, line drawings and cultivation requirements each, for both Roridula and Aldrovandra, 40 pages on Drosophyllum and 74 pages for Pinguicula.

There was even a dozen or so pages dealing with Philcoxia, now regarded as a potential new addition to the plant carnivory families.

dvg

[dvg]

Since this is a Nepenthes site, it would probably be fair to add that the new books have a Nepenthes section that spans 138 pages with 14 of those pages devoted to the cultivation requirements of this species. There is also an appendix in volume two which covers the newest Nepenthes species found since his 2009 Magnus Opus on Nepenthes species and Cephalotus, 'Pitcher Plants of the Old World volumes 1 & 2' was released.

The current set of books list 129 total recognized Nepenthes species, as well as 3 undiagnosed taxa.

Of course that will change, if it hasn't already, with new Nepenthes species being discovered at the current rate that they have recently been found.

dvg

[rainforest]

I didn't purchase this book but is curious what is their stand on fertilizing nepenthes?
Do they grasp that to grow these plants regular normal growing cultivation requirements are needed (which implies to watering, sunlight growing, media and nutrients, etc.).

BE for the longest time had the notion that fertilizing nepenthes was bad and can kill the plants. These kinds of misinformation really separates those that truly want the give the collector success in growing these plants and those who want them to fail thus buying them over and over again in a trial and effort method of growing these rre beauties.
M

[dvg]

Sept 15, 2010 11:53:01 GMT -10 rainforest said:

I didn't purchase this book but is curious what is their stand on fertilizing nepenthes?

M

On page 607 of Volume One of 'Carnivorous Plants and their Habitats', the book states:

'All Nepenthes grow in environments in which the soil is typically poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen and phosphorus.

As carnivorous plants, Nepenthes specifically evolved to exploit niches in areas of soil poverty where non-carnivorous plant species are less well adapted to survive.

The roots of Nepenthes are therefore attuned to nutrient poor conditions, and often are reduced in function, serving mainly to absorb water and anchor the plant in a particular location.

As a result, high nutrient levels cannot be tolerated by Nepenthes, and artificial fertilisation of cultivated plants with feed of usual strength is harmful or lethal and must be avoided.

Due to this sensitivity, Nepenthes must be grown in nutrient poor, well drained compost.'

I was surprised he didn't mention coffee. Maybe he just didn't have room to fit it in. ;D

dvg

[Dave Evans]

Michael,

Please, briefly and without needlessly bashing people not as 'smart' as yourself, outline your fertilizing method. I seem to recall something about "flushing" that sounded to be in perfect agreement with Stewart's text.

[leilani]

With all due respect, you don't generally go to a taxonomist for care instructions. Certainly, the data established by the field naturalist is invaluable to the horticulturist but, if, your interest is in growing healthy plants in conditions other than "natural" then, you would do well to look elsewhere for advice.

Stewart is at the top of his game in finding and describing plants in situ. I doubt he has a lot of experience actually growing these plants in culture. It was pretty clear from the appendix of his last books on Nepenthes that he is a bit out-of-touch in this regard. He quotes care regiments from the 1800's and mouths out the basics but offers nothing new at all. His care instructions could well have been written in the 1960's.

The quote above from Stewart's new books is just a reprint from his first set on Nepenthes (p. 1277). Writing new books is easier that way. ;D

[rainforest]

This is why when a specific topic is written about any subject, you get an expert to write that section. If you don't get an expert to write that section, then you have a book of pure unscientific personal feelings and expressions. Stewart should have gotten someone to write a preface about the actual horticultural aspect of growing nepenthes. Someone who actually grows them in captivity. I personally do not agree that soils that nepenthes grow is poor in nutrients. If Stewart did an actual soil sampling and tested his hypothesis that the soils are poor, then it would be more accurate to say something lie this. I observe these soils to be poor in some nutrients as we know it, but very rich in other minor nutrients that soils of volcanic, limestone and other soils have nutrients specific for their growing adaptions.
Most botanists here in Hawai'i will agree that fresh lava fields are pretty sterile. The first occupational plants/life are lichen and fungi. These are the first to arrive followed soon after by ferns, mosses and primitive vascular plants such as Psilotums, lycopodiums, etc. These soon are followed by larger more advanced ferns, tree ferns, then Metrosideros, etc. The soil base is hardly sterile or poor at this point. But rather rich in organic micronutrients and organic debris sediments. The eventual soil type is a rich volcanic well drained media rich in soluble forms of nutrients. The porous rocks create possible pockets of reserve nutrients which are all water soluble and the way that they are refreshed is simply from a heavy rain storm of flooding and dilution. Nepenthes roots are more than just supportive. They are neither velamin coated orchid-like nor are they tenacious such as those of Ficus (Banyans) etc. But rather almost water hyacinth like in making nutrient netting more possible. I have not witnessed any nepenthes roots being pure functional as tenacious or support functional. N. veitchii, N. northiana, N. campanulata which one would conceive as being somewhat a need requirement for having tenacious abilities, do not. The mere idea of N. veitchii leaves interlocking around tree trunks suggest that roots are not tenacious enough or even important for this function. Instead the plant relies on tenacious leaves to support the vine to climb a tree trunk. Even the root systems of N.campanulata would suggest that they be very coarse and wiry like those found in other plant species for a vertical support, yet they are more fine, soft and spreading suggesting that their only function is purely nutritive absorption.
So why develop these soft, netting for nutrient type roots if their soils are too poor to sustain them? The answer, it is because they are not growing in nutrient poor soils but soils which every specimen of plant life is in direct competition to obtain nutrients from. Therefore make an extensive root system and take advantage of what's there. Many nepenthes grow nearby streams and flowing water. Most people know that flowing water usually brings fresh nutrients by way of washing media nutrients from upper regions of where water is collected as rainfall droplets break up potential nutrients in the air, in rocks, in debris, etc.
Fertilizing nepenthes works best as a soluble flush of nutrients. A water soluble nutrient source is significant to initiate root absorption in nepenthes. Water flushing via rain storms, flooding on the ground surface and even rushing water over and through rocks creates the highest dissolved nutrients available. Nepenthes will be the first to get them not because they come from nutrient poor media but rather they are advanced and have adapted their roots for nutrient absorption by way of dissolved particles in a water source. The nepenthes growth and development is almost entirely based on this water of life adaption. The other periods of the year when it is dry or fewer water flooding experience is where nepenthes must rely on prey capture to sustain it's nutrients between the long periods of flooding. This is why nepenthes flowers and fruits at best during this rainy period and that seed development and release is timed around the seed dispersal and that capture nutrients is merely just to winter out the lack of adequate nutrients usually obtainable through water flooding periods.
Of course you wouldn't know any of this if you're just a botanist looking at flowers and leaves.
Even if you were a foremost authority on nepenthes!
M

[kain]

Technically, McPherson isn't a botanist. He has never claimed to have qualifications in that direction, but instead relies on others for taxonomic determinations (Alastair Robinson, for example). McPherson is an adventurer. But, without people like him, the rest of us would be sitting in our little greenhouses, congratulating ourselves on our stupendous collection of five species of Nepenthes (for example). You're right, though, he should have come to a cultivator for advice on cultivating, rather than walking the party line.

[rainforest]

It seems he got botanists to get the botanical aspects of nepenthes for the book. How funny he didn't get advice from a nepenthes grower horticulturalist to get the information about growing them.
Any way more widespread false information about growing them is published again. Hopefully this won't push back nepenthes CULTIVATION back into the dark ages again.
Just the idea of nepenthes growing in poor soils is a myth. Nepenthes do not grow clambering over trees and across vast regions because they are growing in poor soils. And they don't get all their nutrition from bugs. There are carnivorous plants that do grow in poor soils and they prove this theory by being small with 90% of their foliage functions for prey capture (you know which ones they are) and they stay small teeny specimens. The rules of insect capture solely for nutrition is accurate for these plants, and they do inhabit acid and poor soils where even competition from other plants are dwarfed by this lack of nutrients.
The tree that N. veitchii grows on is no way growing in a soil that is deprived of nutrients. Any common sense horticulturalists will know this. For a vigorously growing N. veitchii to be able to sustain nutrients (even if exclusively from bugs) AND be able to climb a tree is somewhat amazing! Oddly the large thick trunk from the tree does not capture insect prey for it to get this mass volume, so why does everyone point their fingers at nepenthes that they "get most of their nutrition from insect prey"? You've seen the super large pitchers of N. merrilliana, rajah, macrophylla, burbidgeae and these are not pitchers infested with prey, and many times have very few insects and many are small insects as their prey. So how can these plants produce such huge pitchers? It is because they grow in soils that have nutrients for making large plants with large pitchers. Let's not get confused by having trees and shrubs dwarfed in regions where wind currents dwarf trees and then call it poor nutrition. This does not suggest that these soils are poor. If a botanist or horticulturalist actually done some work on soil testing and then came out saying that these soils lack ...., then it is more meaningful. To say that soils are limestone or ultramafic doesn't suggest that these soils are poor, but rather have micronutrient surplus.
Any way the proof of the matter is that nepenthes RESPONDS to fertilizing treatments of the root zone and even if you remove all the pitchers and only fertilized nepenthes, that they will continue to grow and even flower. I've had plants that for some reasons never made it to produce pitchers whether from physical clumsiness-damage to being underdeveloped and not making any. Yet were able to grow, make flowers, produced viable pollen and also made seed pods without the aid in insect prey.

M

[walterg]

Based on my more than 35 years experience growing Nepenthes, I have to agree with Michael on this. Well-grown plants in my care have almost always developed extensive networks of fine roots that look to me like exactly what a plant would need to absorb moisture and nutrients from the soil. I have had a great many Nepenthes over the years that grew big, robust, leafy vines with few or no pitchers. These plants were healthy in every respect, but derived little or no nutrition from carnivory. We know that some Nepenthes in the wild may end up as rootless or nearly rootless climbing vines with lots of pitchers. That is fine, but does not necessarily mean that genetically identical specimens would fail to thrive if fertilised under horticultural conditions. I have never tested "soil" samples from my own pots, but I doubt that a typical well-matured potfull of bark, moss, treefern, and associated microflora would be found to be very nutrient-poor. Non-carnivorous plants sure love growing in the very same stuff, even without fertilizers.

[leilani]

An ''adventurer"

Again, no disrespect intended toward McPherson. I admire the young man and am truly grateful for his excellent works.
______________________

"Nepenthes evolved their carnivorous nature in response to poor soil conditions."

We have all heard this repeated in a thousand different linguistic formulations. Nearly every text states this somewhere. Is this really true or has it simply become instantiated as knowledge as the result of its constant repetition? (I myself often say this sort of thing; most often to hurry the educational part of a sales pitch along. It is a simple answer to a question with no simple answer.)

"Nepenthes evolved their carnivorous nature in response to poor soil conditions."

The simple question is "How did these plants come to catch bugs?". Its an obvious question and when people ask, you've gotta tell them something. ;D Telling them that they evolved the ability to capture insects in order to provide them with the nutrients that could not be found in their natural environment fits well with the neo-darwinian perspective most people have assimilated and "poor soil conditions" sounds quantitative and sorta "scientific". Most people swallow it whole and never think twice. Of course, if, you do think twice then, it gets harder to swallow.

"Poor soil conditions". To quote Jerry Lundergard, "What the heck do you mean?" It is not as if these plants were growing in the Sahara. Everywhere we look these plants are surrounded by a plethora of diverse species and they all seem to be doing pretty well considering their deprivation. (?)

I have seen some quantitative soil analysis' with regard to a few specific locations but its a huge leap from a few spot samples to speculation regarding the evolution of an entire family of plants living in such diverse localities and conditions. Its BS! It fits the accepted evolutionary model and puts the pesky questions neatly aside. It is a far too often used bit of pseudo-knowledge that will, most likely, continue to be repeated in the introduction of carnivorous plant books well into the future. ;D

[amori]

I think the nutrient rich/poor idea is relative: if someone is brave enough to start mulching their plants with horse manure, please do let us know the results.

[morbus]

the words "poor soil" may be a bit misleading. True - I have swallowed the "poor soil" line whole but now im thinking . . .
as stated above - theres no way Nep habitats can support all the non-carnivorous plants that they do if carnivory was "needed" for a plant to make a living.

maybe -
they mean the nutrients that available are under high demand! thus more difficult to come by. because there are so many other plants that also want it.
I say this because rain forests (and coral reefs) are considered (for lack of a better word) nutrient poor. the reasoning is that any nutrients that come into the system are taken by something very quickly. this problem is exacerbated by all the rain and running water. this is a problem because the soil is so loose and free draining - all water (which is holding the useful/soluble nutrients) disappears very quickly.

so - it could be that "poor soil" is just a quicker way of saying the above. Neps may have gotten their pitchers so they can circumvent the problems of all the competition and rapid nutrient cycling.

I just still dont agree with the book stating "high nutrient levels cannot be tolerated by Nepenthes, and artificial fertilisation of cultivated plants with feed of usual strength is harmful or lethal and must be avoided."

[walterg]

Sept 20, 2010 23:43:31 GMT -10 amori said:

I think the nutrient rich/poor idea is relative: if someone is brave enough to start mulching their plants with horse manure, please do let us know the results.

A few years ago, in a small and totally unscientific experiment, I planted a half dozen healthy Nepenthes in well-rotted horse manure, and by that I mean I planted them directly into the ground on the oldest part of what had been a manure pile. By the end of the summer most of them were dead.

1) This "half-assed" experiment involved numerous simultaneous changes of environment, including increased direct sunlight, higher ambient air temperature, increased exposure to wind, and more or less constantly moist soil, bordering on soggy much of the time.

2) Horse manure in no way resembles the combination of a typical Nepenthes potting media with periodic addition of fertilizer followed by flushing.

3) It was only a half-dozen plants, not a thousand.

Conclusion: These results are probably meaningless.

[morbus]

I dont flush my pots after fertilizing. . . . .
though, every night it "kind of" rains lightly in my GH which may serve the purpose of flushing. the "light rain" provides enough water so i dont ever water my plants (besides 3 of them)