Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

Here's a picture of my H. moseleyanum seedling, a tuberous ant plant from Australia. Took this little fella some time to cling on the fern bark. It was not until I decided not to pamper it so much and just splash water on it when I water it that it quickly grow roots to try and cling on the fern bark.

However, it's "butt" is still falling off. Looks kinda hilarious, and I thought I would share it here.

Attachment 1468

It's brother here seem to do better.
Attachment 1469

Here's one potted plantlet.
Attachment 1470

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

David.....OK! here's my long long awaited photo of the mosey seed you gave me. *biggrin2*
Planted in a mixture of sphag and perlite with charcoal underneath.
Kinda tiny!

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g1...t/DSCF4247.jpg

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g1...t/DSCF4249.jpg

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

Your baby is so cute and healthy. Please teach me how you make that little fella grow such a broad and rounded tuber. Wonder why all my seedlings are skinny. I have some under grow lights and some with evening sunlight. All look the same.

Do you keep the media always wet like in the picture or you let it dry out?

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

I don't really know what's the secret. :spinning:
Sometimes I totally forgotten to water it for few days and like right now, it rains for a couple of days non-stop. I think it's the drying period in between watering that makes it grow tuber. That means you let the media dry out completely before the next watering. This is base on my observation....I might be wrong.
Maybe you can try out to see how's the result.

Btw, only 1 plant left. The other plantlet just 'disappeared' after repotting.

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

Do you fertilise them? I fertilise mine with very diluted orchid fertilisers. Don't see much difference tho'

A few of mine also went to plant heaven. Not I am left with 6 plantlets.

I'll try to give them a drying off period and see what happens. At the moment my routine is to wait until the media is bone dry before watering again. But this time I'll wait longer before the next watering.

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

David, my plant is long overdue for a good fertiliser feeding. Since you brought this up, I might sprinkle a few pellets of osmocote.
Thanks for reminding me:laugh:

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

They're sooo cute haha.So they attract ants?

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

Yupe! They actually invite ants to make nest in their tubers, which is part of their trunk. When they grow bigger, there will be holes on the tubers and inside the tubers are chambers.

So the ants get a free home and shelter while the plants get protection and fertiliser from food debris that the ants bring in. It's a symbiotic relationship. Aren't they just amazing?

Btw: Glad and happy for you that you got your N. albo. :) Three years is a long time without Neps. How did you survive?

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

David,
Talking about inviting ants, does your bigger plant have any ants? Coming to think of it, dont know whether it's good or bad for the plant as I'm sure ants will go back to their old habit of farming all those mealy bugs, aphids and scale inscets. Instead of having a fat caudex. the plant will be slowly sucked dry!
Or does it have certain chemicals that will prevent this from happening?
Just a thought.................

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

Nope! My bigger plants do not have ants. I guess it's because they are in my apartment 13 floors in the air.

I am not sure about your other questions Andy. But actually those are good questions. Whether they have chemicals to prevent pest or not, from my observation of my plants I think not as my ant plants sometimes do have mealybugs on them and I need to clean them off from the plants.

Ok, time to go search for answers.

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

Maybe they have pheramone(is the spelling correct?).
P.S.David,it was like living hell(haha),most nurseries don't sell good plants(I've got the phobia about Neps dying,haha)but Fauzi's plant are sooo healthy!!

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

David, 'introduce' some ants *biggrin2* but I'm sure the ministry of home affairs wouldn't approve of it!!

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

David, you need to find a queen ant and put it inside your plant!!!! Just joking......

I wouldn't do that if I were both of you. You better not to messing around with ants. They'll be your worst nightmare!:crying:

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

I hate ants. Everytime I check on my rajah they bite my feets.

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

Funckychips,
You are spot on! I may be the Prime Minister of my home but the Minister of Home Affairs rules... Haaa, haaa... :unsure:

But to be honest Andy, I did thought of looking for a queen ant to put inside my ant plants. I was thinking, then I can farm them to feed my other carnivores. *biggrin2*

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

:blink:.....*faint*!

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

here in EUROPE we have no ant for these ant plants

For all mine I give a fertilizer green plant NPK : 23-5-5 or similar the N (azote ) is very important the others 2 not any .

jeff

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

Just an update. David, here's the mosey that you gave me. I only saw it this morning.

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g1...t/DSCF5141.jpg

How are your plants doing? Mine is very slow growing.

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

I'll post a picture soon Andy. Mine is bigger but somehow the base is not so fat like yours. I like them to me more stumpy like yours.

About the question on ants living in my ant plants, I got my wish. I noticed a couple weeks ago that there are alot of ants around my plants. Found out they came from my ant plants. I think there are two nests in two pots of my tuberous ant plants. Those are the black colored ants, so not so bad... but I realised lately they've started to farm mealybugs. Some of the new leaves are deformed.

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

David where do you get them except those from Australlia??

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

David, I think your wish is not a pleasant one. Some of our 'domestic' ants do know how to farm mealybugs. I've seen many already. What I'm afraid of is you will have big problem once the caudex start to have chambers and ants having their nest inside. They definetely will farm mealybugs in there!

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

it is really a hydnophytum moseleyanum ?

mine is very branched

http://pinguicula.free.fr/hm1.JPG

excuse me for the bad quality picture

your moseleyanum come from what country ?

really you have DAVID a ant nest in your caudex ? do you know the ant specie ?

jeff

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

http://images.search.yahoo.com/image...%26fr%3Dyfp-t-
Gee.....I'm not too sure. Yours looks like one. Still new to this. Maybe this link will give you some answer you are looking for.

701&w=375&h=500&imgurl=static.flickr.com%2F3363%2F 3225343178_3121855d0f.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fl ickr.com%2Fphotos%2F33901730%40N06%2F3225343178%2F &size=121k&name=Hydnophytum+mose...&p=Hydnophytum+ moseleyanum&oid=47d51058c357a93a&fr2=&fusr=odds%26 amp%3Bendssg&no=5&tt=14&sigr=11lfeqq0g&sigi=11g3jd mdv&sigb=12s4b7o1t

Btw, your plant is really nice.

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

I got a few from Andy, some from nurseries (Dischidia) and others from other members like Choong aka KLtower (ant ferns).

Andy's and mine came from Australia. Bought the seeds off ebay from a grower there.

Nope! Not familier witrh ant species. I'll see if I can snap a few photos of them in the next few days.


Andy, here's my Hydnophytum moseleyanum...
Attachment 2225

Attachment 2226

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

I think I starve my plant for too long:spinning:

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

Maybe I should starve mine so that the caudex is more bulbose. I can't wait for it to grow up, so I keep fertilising it. But it gave me a spurt of growth after I repotted into this media and this bigger pot. The rest are only half the size of this plant. I think I need to repot them as well.

Jeff, I like the shape of your plant. Really nice like a bongsai

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

Ya....I think can slow down your fertiliser schedule since it had a good start. Let the caudex do the forming. Hmmm...I will feed mine more regularly and see what happen.

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

atmccmn

some problem with your link :crying:

DAVID

do you know if this hydnophytum moseleyanum come from a collection or from natural species find in australia?

because in australia you have just these hydnophytum natural species
http://www.anbg.gov.au/cgi-bin/apni?...ME=HYDNOPHYTUM

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

Jeff, the seller told me it was native to Australia on the North-Eastern side of the continent. It grows on low trees over the sea. 1-2 other websites also confirms that hydnophytum moseleyanum are native in Australia and also Papua New Guinea.

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

papuanum also

why rather moseleyanum than papuanum ?

I give a official site from the Australian National Herbarium

I think they speak of thing which they know

but can be I am mistaken

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

David,

Here's an update of one of the seedling of the mosey you gave years back. It also have 3 side shoots coming out from the base of the caudex. I'm surprised it flowered at this young age. There are no seeds setting yet.

How's yours:confused:

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g1...a/DSC_0291.jpg

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g1...a/DSC_0292.jpg

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

Wow! Yours is truly a beautiful specimen. very healthy and alot of leaves. Mine not doing so well... mainly due to neglect and headache from ants farming pest on the leaves... Remember I mentioned some time ago that I hope ants will live in my ant plants in my apartment and u told me not a good idea? That the ants will farm pest?

Well, I got want I wanted. The ants just appeared in one ant plant... I was thrill... then another... then another... Then they started farming pest. I tried to kill the ants off after this but they keep coming back. I think I use too much poison on some of my ant plants and they are dying. Funny the ants seem to dissapear for a while, then I start seeing them again running all over my window and floor where I place the plant.

I am saddddddd.... In fact 90% of my ant plants look like wilted vegetables now. Already a few died... Just don have the right place to grow them and time to care for them these days. Don get me started on my CPs as well... haiz... One huge trama and heart ache there as well...

Re: Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life
 

Ouch!!!. that's terrible.
Too much of pesticide will do harm to your plants too. I;m lost of words how to advise in such situation as I never experiencee one before.Perhaps you should slowly adjusting it out to sunnier and open area and see what will happen.
No worries. I see some set fruits already this morning. You can let me know and I'll send you some seeds to start over again:laugh:
Cheers,
AT