N. ventricosa "porcelain form"

[rsivertsen]

Dave Evans took some photos of my "porcelain form" recently and posted them in another forum, but thought they were good enough to post them here as well. They are very slow, growing only one new leaf about every 4 months, and form pitchers only 2 or 3 months during the winter. They're not easy plants to grow, and cuttings don't always take root well either, but they ARE well worth the effort.
These are still small sized plants, and get twice this size easily when fully mature. I have yet to see this plant flower although I've been familiar with them for well over 25 years, and Longwood Gardens has grown them for about 50 years and has never got it to produce a flower either, nor has anyone I know here in the USA. To my knowledge, only Geoff Mansel has got it to produce a female flower.
They will often form tendrils without developing pitchers, then when conditions seem right, they seem to resume growth, develop and open all at once. Notice the peristomes and how different they are from the smaller, southern varieties in Luzon which seem to have spots and some shade of pink to flesh colored pitchers and a very different peristome, and flowers profusely, both males and females.
They are also very stiff, nearly woody, like N. lowii, which is doesn't show in the photographs.
I'm hoping to get full sized mature pitchers from them this season when they resume pitcher formation. - Rich