Hydnophytum moseleyanum clinging to dear life

[David]

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.



It's brother here seem to do better.


Here's one potted plantlet.

[atmccmn]

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

[David]

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?

[atmccmn]

I don't really know what's the secret.
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.

[David]

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.

[atmccmn]

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

[marvin1997]

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

[David]

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?

[atmccmn]

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.................

[David]

Originally Posted by atmccmn

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.................

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.