Re: N. Smilesii
 

That looks like overwatering symptoms. Plus with the hot weather torturing the plant, I suggest you change the media to something more airy.

Re: N. Smilesii
 

what do you suggest to replaced with after i have sphagnum moss + charcoal bits as media and still it shows overwatering? it will be sort of walking in "sarong" without underwear...chuckles....i'll try to repot it again with greater ratio of charcoal and hope it won't goes dehydrated.

i've also mentioned that the neighbouring pots of mirabilis, viking, ventricosa x northiana, hirsuta, bellii and they are growing well with the same media, sunlight and watering. what more could have went wrong? :confused:

Re: N. Smilesii
 

Sometimes, LFS can decompose very quickly and compact around the roots of the plant, suffocating it. I've experienced it several times. If you want to use charcoal bits again, you would have to crush them to smaller bits (0.5-1cm) so that more can be distributed evenly across the entire media and aerating the soil.

How many times you water a day? I can kinda guess that N smilesii doesn't tolerate overwatering, but thats just my opinion because I don't grow this species :smile:

Re: N. Smilesii
 

Hi there, both photos show N. smilesii :)
The compost looks fine, and if the weather is too hot, I wouldn't stress the plant changing the compost. The plant doesn't look so bad, it only seems to have been in too high temperature and I think spider mites arrived and caused even bigger problems (they come running when you try to grow highland species in lowland climates). The other smilesii you have looks fine, maybe is a stronger clone or it comes from lower altitudes. So: keep the plant in its compost, spray both sides of the leaves with a product against spidermites and keep it in shade. As soon as the weather gets cooler it should be fine. The new leaf looks very healthy. I really think it's a case of spidermites attacking a plant that is weak because of the temperature, I've seen that so many times. Of course, if the plant is stressed and it's gorwing slowly, don't overwater, just keep the compost barely damp. No need to say you shouldn't leave the pot in standing water.

Re: N. Smilesii
 

thanks marcello for the advice, i'll keep it more shaded for this (n. smilesii BE) and thank you too for the correct ID on the second plant (n. cf "thorelii")...

attached below is a n. "thorelii" from neofarm... what will be correct ID for it? :smile:

http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/7...1107081826.jpg

Re: N. Smilesii
 

it's a bit young to tell, but it should be N. suratensis... When you have the plant location, I always have an immediate answer of course, but with ONE plant, and young, it's a bit difficult... Maybe you got it as "N. tiger Surat" or "N. thorelii from Suratthani"... The bulk under the lid is very characteristic, as much as the acuminate leaf tips and the red new leaves, but the two last things can also appear in young plants of N. smilesii...

Re: N. Smilesii
 

oh really!! i always admire your knowledge in the "thorellii mess" and this one i acquired it as seed grown plant from neofarm thailand via fauzy (4zeplant) as n. "thorelii".

i hope others who had plants from these "thorelii" region could contribute pictures so that we can clear the doubt on whether we had a "real" thing or not....this is would be based on the identification provided by marcello as it has hinted that all the plant tags that we have is inaccurate.

marcello, i hope you dont mind to share your comprehensive knowledge right?*biggrin2*

Re: N. Smilesii
 

Oh, I already posted one message, I think one year ago, to say that anybody who has a "thorelii" or any not-well-identified plant from Indochina, can post his photos and we can try an identification. But people don't seem that interested. Having a "thorelii" or anything else seems to be the same to them. Plus, unfortunately I often have to make many questions that people can't always understand, or ask for details that people are not able to see in the plant, or - the easiest way - I ask for the province of origin of the plant, but most of the times people and sellers don't know that. I'm curious about your "cf. thorelii", because if it was sold with that name it means that the seller knows that it wasn't probably thorelii, but he could not recognize it as smilesii, which is strange. Where did you buy it?

Re: N. Smilesii
 

thanks marcello,

for my case, i would not be afraid or feel embarassed to ask in order to clear doubts that i have as long as it does not go overboard by giving wrong information and wild guesses. you speak from experience and knowledge therefore you did good to the cp community. :1thumbup:

the n. cf "thorelii" is from a nepenthes collector's collection and the seeds are obtained from a seller in vietnam. he managed to germinate and raised it to a good size and sell off with the tag nepenthes cf "thorelii" and i bought 2 of these. *biggrin2*

perhaps what was written in www.neofarmthailand.com is quite true (and confusing) as it mentioned about 3 types of thorelii in thailand, namely thorelii "laos tiger", thorelii "cambodia" and thorelii "tiger". and my n. "thorelii" from neofarm via fauzy might be one of them..... :laugh:

based on my conclusion, the knowledge about nepenthes and especially from the "thorelii" 's big family from malaysian border and towards upnorth has been ignored and often confused with each other. :glare:

below is a picture that i've snapped during my visit to one of the collector's home and i hope he dont mine that i have shared it here. it was labelled as thorelii too....

marcello, what could this be? i am "ready" for the answer....:closedeyes:
http://img585.imageshack.us/img585/7...reliipakde.jpg

however this one he labelled it as n. smilesii...
http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/7...lesiipakde.jpg

Re: N. Smilesii
 

A little problem now arises: last year some Viet guys found the actual N. thorelii, poached some plants and introduced them in cultivation, solding them around SE Asia. There was a big fuss about this fact, and as a result another big hunt for nepenthes in Vietnam, so that even more plants (what species?) were collected, possibly by mean of seeds and cuttings, and sold as thorelii or cf. thorelii. Unfortunately we don't know MUCH about N. thorelii, we basically know the very peculiar shape of the lower pitchers, which reminds of N. mirabilis var. globosa, while the rest of the plant should basically look like N. smilesii (narrow leaves, hairy, with acute tips). In Vietnam we should also have N. kampotiana and for sure there's a lot of N. smilesii. We still have to properly explore southern Cambodia and southern Vietnam, to see where one species finishes and the other one begins, and if there are some new species.

In Thailand, instead, we have more species, all sold around as "tiger" or "thorelii", with further nickname attached, like giant tiger, laos tiger, giant thorelii tiger, Surat tiger, giant thorelii Phang.nga etc. Knowing the province helps a lot. Another good thing is that Neofarm has been selling the same clones for a long time (since when in 2004, together with NF's owner, we were trying all together to understand this indochinese mess), so we know what most of them are (what is called "thorelii cambodia" is N. kampotiana, for example).

About the plant in the picture (it seems to me both photos show the same plant), if you don't own the plant we only have the photos of the pitchers, so we can't check other details in person. The photos tell me it's N. kampotiana, but we should check the indumentum (the hair on the vegetative parts), because kampotiana is completely glabrous with only some VERY small hair over tendril and pitchers. N. smilesii is definately hairy and as far as we know, N. thorelii too.