I've excavated myself some free time this morning that I should probably be spending starting to job hunt, but I really need to decompress, so I'm going to nerd out about butterworts on Tumblr. :))
I have a lot of carnivorous plants, but the ones I definitely have the most of are pinguiculas. They're otherwise known as butterworts, and they're very small sticky-leaved carnivorous plants native to central America that do really well as indoor plants and also have a winter-time non-carnivorous "succulent" phase.
Anyway, here are mine! I have a lot! :)) So this will be a pretty long post.
All of these six are relatively new to my collection!
Top left P. x "Leilani" should turn a pretty purple over time (purple pings are my favorites, and p much all of them are some cross with P. cyclosecta), and top middle P. martinezii x laueana should and up with some very interesting wavy pink petals.
Top right is P. x "Lilac Lollipop," named for the color of that cute flower you see! All pings have flowers on tall stems so they don't snare their pollinators, and Lilac Lollipop is a popular cultivar because it has very pretty flowers and leaves. I hope to see it purple up nicely with bright light!
Bottom left is P. "Riva," which is actually a freebie I got in my latest order that coincidentally is one I'd been eyeballing before, so: sweet! It should go pink over time.
Bottom middle P. gypsicola {Buena Vista} is a fun example of a ping because despite having two very different-looking plants, they're actually the same exact one! The densely-leaved bottom one is the succulent phase and the top mini-tentacled one is the carnivorous phase. I have another I will show later that is mid-transformation from succulent to carnivorous.
The P. x "Hanka" on the bottom right has only been here fore a day and is already looking rougher than I'd hoped, possibly got slightly cooked in the package. I'm going to add a little humidity dome to help it recover; I really hope it does, because it has very unique, frilly flowers compared to every other ping I've seen!
These are a mix of old and new pings!
Top left is P. x "Razzberry Blonde." It's famous for having unique flowers that are yellow threaded through with pink. It blooms and replicates CONSTANTLY and is a really vigorous grower for me! I started with one plant and currently have four even though I've given two away. You can see two flowers budding up, too!
Top middle P. "Minas des Asbestos" is a freebie I got, a color variation on P. esseriana. They stay very small and cute, one of my favorite pings to scatter all over the place!
Top right is P. x "Arsenic and Old Lace," a new cross from California Carnivores. It has pretty pinkish leaves and a muted pastel pink flower that I look forward to seeing.
Bottom left is P. x "Penny," another one for my hoard of purples.
Bottom middle is P. laueana x emarginata. I always have trouble with laueanas, but while the old leaves died off while transplanting, the new ones look pretty vigorous and I have high hopes. It should have really neat green leaves with distinct purple borders once it settles in.
Bottom right is P. sp "Guatemala," which was a "get a random ping for cheap" order I added on a while ago, and it actually has turned out really stunning. It's very pink and sparkles with a lot of sticky dew; it has quickly grown to be one of my favorites! Here's a close-up:
These six I've had for varying amounts of time.
Top left is P. gigantea x cyclosecta cross, it's my oldest ping! I recently propagated a couple more copies of it, and it props very easily. Also has cute, deep purple flowers with somewhat unique rounded edges.
Top middle is P. x "Lavender Lacewing," this is another ping well-known for having interesting purple-veined flowers. It is much newer and the new leaves immediately started coming in nearly twice as large as the old, so I'm stoked to see how big it gets.
Top right, speaking of big, is literally called P. gigantea alba (the non-pigmented, white version of the standard P. gigagntea). Giganteas are unique pings; their leaves are sticky on top and on the underside, and they can actually grow to be truly enormous, up to a full foot across with good care. This one is a baby but already growing rapidly! I will certainly have to move it elsewhere in a few months.
Bottom left is my struggling propagation chamber for P. ehlersiae "Cotton Candy," a small, pink ping named for its color. I really hope they take off because I've had it as long as I've had the gigantea x cyclosecta and I accidentally burned the older two to death with fertilizer. :')
Bottom middle is P. x "Twilight Sparkle," which should have long, thin, and sparkly dark purple leaves. It's currently in its succulent stage, but has just about started to put out sticky carnivorous leaves! Check them out, already catching some lint on the sticky leaves:
Bottom right is P. x "Johanna." This is another popular cultivar made in 2009, known for how aggressively pink the leaves get. It also gets a big bigger than its current size! Can't wait to see it after a few months under my bright lights.
And most of these are quite new to my collection!
Top left is P. x "Lilac Pinecone," named for how its succulent phase looks like a tall-stacked little pinecone. Bigger than I expected and still settling in!
Top middle is empty, TBD.
Top right is P. cyclosecta {Dulces Nombres, Nuevo León}, a variant on the original ping that all the other pings get their purple from!
Bottom left is P. x "Marciano," which should turn swirly and pink once it settles in.
Bottom middle is P. x "Penny," another for my purple collection.
Bottom right is P. esseriana, a basic tiny little ping that I want to make an army of in that pot. :) As you can see, it is already growing babies!
And lastly, my ping bowl! This thing has been through a lot, including a number of deaths due to me accidentally burning it with fertilizer last month, haa... It has some unique pings in it that I am going to propagate out into their own pots (P. x "Moonshine" in pastel pink at the very top and P. x "Fiorello III" which is the bright pink flowering one), and P. laueana at the rightmost there that I just cannot get to propagate. There's also a couple of tiny P. esseriana and purple P. gigantea x cyclosecta props in there. My goal is to green up and thicken out the moss, and propagate a bunch more esserianas and maybe a couple of other pings into there to make a nice little garden!
Anyway, thanks if you read this far. This is mostly just me nerding out about my pings. I will probably post updates with a link back to this main post in the future for my own posterity, but hopefully someone out there other than me also enjoyed!
