Re: Hissss....
 

Haha, sorry everyone!! Wasn't expecting there to be that much interest in this plant because when I posted it on the CP section of my local plant forum, there was like ZERO interest, heh.

Thanks for the compliments everyone! The plant you see has been growing at my place for about half a year now. A bit of a victory, to me at least, since I've heard horror stories about how the plant can just croak overnight if it hates its conditions, so growing it for that long, plus getting it to adapt and give nice growth, I can live with that. :)

Its growing at the window of my bedroom, so it does get air-con, but only at night while I'm sleeping. Its got to survive the heat of the day without any cooling. Its been adapted to taking air-con level humidity too, so its not in a tank or any form of terra, nor am I using lights. Basically, its just sitting happily at the window without me bothering about it too much, except watering from time to time.

No real tricks, it doesn't seem to be that fussy, so maybe its reputation is a bit exaggerated...or maybe the problems will only start to show after its been grown for a few years. It generally behaves like a Sarr, except that I've heard that it doesn't lose its leaves during dormancy, so we'll see how that goes. It should be going dormant somtime soon: Sarrs just auto go into dormancy when they feel like it in our climate, so we'll see if this one does the same. Otherwise...it generally doesn't seem too fussy. The pitcher development prefers moderate-high humidity levels and bright light levels, otherwise it will not inflate properly and the tongue will not develop fully.

As to obtaining the plant, it shouldn't be too difficult, there are a fair number of nurseries online which sell them, so its not so much rare, but from what I've heard, the issue is actually keeping it alive after you get it. I have a pot of seedlings growing near this one and even as seedlings, the plant is quite tough, it can already stand up to the heat of the day(even during our hot season) and harden off to low humidity levels. However, the seedlings seem to have a high attrition rate for some reason...it may be my conditions...but those that do make it don't seem to give too many problems. I'd suggest that getting a young plant may be better than getting a seedling though, just in case the high attrition rate is natural.

Incidentally, I've got more than one pot of these guys, but while this one is supposed to be the more heat sensitive clone, they're both doing okay. Because of this, I'm not sure if air-con is even necessary, so I'm planning to divide one of the clumps when I can and try to get it to grow outdoors when I get the chance. After all, if it can take the day heat, there's a chance that it can take the heat period. It doesn't give the same kind of heat sensitive behaviour highland neps give, so I figure its worth a shot.

Re: Hissss....
 

I wish I had one!!! BUT must be very expensive......

Re: Hissss....
 

This plant is so cool and no interest??? I'm ultra-interested in this plant cause I like both CPs and snakes. Hehehe.

Re: Hissss....
 

Well, beats me. No one made any comments about it, so yeah, unless something else is stopping them from making comments, I guess there's no interest. Maybe the Singaporeans on that forum just have different taste in CPs or something, haha.

What would you consider to be very expensive? How about say around 20SGD for a plant about 3/4 the size of the one in the picture? That's more or less how much it cost me after adding in the shipping and cert costs.

Re: Hissss....
 

Nice plant Ifurita. I notice that your plant is quite green. Is this the othelo clone or do you keep it out of direct sunlight? I like the red hoods that develop on most cultivars when kept in direct sun, althought the cultivar that maintains a green hood and develops blood red fangs looks pretty special.

Plantlover, cobra's aren't all that expensive to buy. The difficulty/cost will be in improting them and having the plant arrive in reasonable condition. The cheaper option is to go with seed. Seed is a cheap way to get several plants but you have to be patient in order to get the fangs as the juvenille pictures don't have them and they can take a couple of years to develop mature pictures.

In terms of care the key is to keep the roots relatively cool. The pictures can handle the heat and relatively low humidity but if the roots heat up for extended periods then the plants will die. There are several methods for cooling the roots. Some people go to extremes by running a cooling system through the pot/media to keep the roots cool.

A less expensive method is to put the plant into a large clay pot with an open mix (say sphagnum, bark and perlite) to reduce heat build up. You can then put this into a larger clay pot lined with sphagnum and place this in a tray of water. This insulates against air temperature rises while evaporation cools the roots. Some people also place ice cubes on the top of the media to cool the roots as it melts.

Interesting to hear that your seedlings have a high mortality rate Ifurita. I suspect this would be caused by the media heating up as the seedlings would be more susceptible to this due to the small roots system that is close to the surface of the mix.

Re: Hissss....
 

But I'm not patient enough to wait for seeds. :crying:

Re: Hissss....
 

Fair enough. I know how that is.

Re: Hissss....
 

Hi strath76,
Thanks!. The plant isn't the othelo clone, you can see in the pic that some parts are pink/red, but yeah, the pitchers are quite green. This particular pot is currently out of direct sunlight, but it will get some direct sun later in the year when the sun shifts. I do however have a pot of Darlingtonia which gets already get direct morning sun, yet it reamains completely green. I was told it was a green clone or something, though they didn't mention anything about it being the othelo clone.

You might be right about the seedling mortality rate being due to the heat. Where I kept the seedlings(next to the pot of green Darlingtonia), they would've gotten direct morning sun from sunrise to at least noon and given that I'm in the tropics, it would've heated up pretty quickly...

Re: Hissss....
 

do you want to sell them?

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DARLINGTONIA??? WHEREEEE???????

Hehehe, like aaron, i'm interested in cobras, I wish to grow them, by the way, have your darlingtonias grown stolons that are old enough? It is easier to grow them into mature plants from stolons.:biggrin:

Marvin, I was wondering how is the temperature of your house like. Cause darlingtonias like cool environment especially at the roots. You will have to water them with refrigerated water, otherwise they won't survive. Why don' you look up on cobras?

Cheers:1thumbup: