N. ampullaria "Green Squat Form" x "Black Miracle"

[gj]

This one caught my eye last night, with its deep red pitchers, and striped peristome. It's a little hard to see with the glare of the lights, but each leaf seems to have more red flecking than the last (I assume because the taller it gets, the more light it catches), which doesn't hurt the attractiveness of the plant one bit.

[dvg]

Very nice GJ!

I suspect that this plant, much like a fine vintage wine, will only continue to get better with age. 












dvg

[gj]

Thanks DVG! I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how it progresses.

I've got an all green plant that originated from the same batch of seed (they are both 3rd generation basals) that I will have to share sometime as well. The green one seems to grow much faster than the one pictured above.

[flytrap]

Beautiful variant! I've always loved ampullaria and at one time, tried to grow as many forms as possible. Looking forward to more photos of it as she grows!

[perrywing]

Very nice plant gj! I have a soft spot for squat little bucket or toilet bowl shaped pitchers, I don't know, they're just so cute - probably why I love cephalotus so much, haha! I also like the flecked leaves - nepenthes pitchers always steal the spotlight, but sometimes the rest of the leaf gets it's fifteen minutes of fame too! It's hard to tell from the photo, but how old and how big is this plant?

[gj]

Thanks flytrap! It is quite amazing to see all the variants of ampullaria out there. N. ampullaria 'Lime Twist' often catches my eye when I stumble across photos of it.

perrywing, I couldn't agree more about the leaves. Nice pitchers are great, but nice pitchers and nice leaves simultaneously takes it to the next level. The tag that came with the plants said 2016, so I'm inclined to guess that is when the basals were separated, but I could probably get a hold of the seller to confirm.  I would guess the red-pitchered amp to be about 10" inches across from leaf tip to leaf tip, not including pitchers (they are in 6" pots in the photo below if that helps for scale).

Here are the siblings side by side.




And a close up of one of the green pitchers:

[perrywing]

Wow, they both look great! Bigger than I thought they were, not sure why, haha. Very nice plants! It's incredible how, even within the same seed batch, the physical differences between individual plants can be huge. Super interesting! I'm assuming that the all-green plant grows faster because it lacks anthocyanins (plant pigments) and it's been suggested that anthocyanins can decrease light capture by chloroplasts, resulting in slower growth. Kinda like a sunscreen, haha! But to counter-argue that, the non-pitcher part of the leaf is still mostly green in the red plant, so light capture shouldn't be too dissimilar. Anyways I'm rambling again, but definitely interesting to see their growth differences!

[gj]

The grower I bought the previously shown amps from decided to get out of the lowland game, so I was pretty excited to get to bring home this plant from the same batch of seed, but this one is one of the original seed grown plants that has never been cut.

The pitchers on this one are certainly bulky:




Not quite as dark as my other one, though this picture makes it look lighter than it really is.


The N. ampullaria is on the top shelf, above the N. bicalcarata I also got from him:




The leaves are a little burnt from growing too big to keep away from the lights in the setup he had, but once I find somewhere to put them a little more permanently, I'll set it up so the lighting is a little more gentle on them.

Any thoughts on staking up the ampullaria once I get it in a bigger space? I figure using some vertical space might be ideal to minimise its footprint.

[ellsie]

gj,

How about some type of "moss pole" in the middle of your N. ampullaria planter? I've seen people use this type of trellis for vining Vanilla orchids. It's essentially a circular tomato cage filled with sphagnum moss on the inside. Perhaps that might also work for your ampullaria?

[gj]

ellsie, I've seen that done with vanilla and Monstera plants, it would certainly look pretty sweet! Though I imagine I'd have to find something that wasn't made out of some sort of metal if it is in the pot, as it might not appreciate the rust that I would imagine would be inevitable. Do you know whether, after training it a little, an ampullaria will cling to the pole like veitchii do when they climb trees?

[flytrap]

The nice big amp you have in your hand looks ... well, delicious! ... almost like a chocolate treat with a velvet red coat on it. 

[gj]

flytrap, don't give me any ideas! Haha. Although I'm sure I know somebody who might have some nepenthes recipes, eh bonfield?

[flytrap]

Ha ha ha... I've seen a few recipes on-line, GJ... not sure if I'd want to taste it. But like Bonfield, I've tasted the nectar from my Neps and orchids...as they were dripping with nectar everywhere. Tasted quite sweet, no flavour though

I love ampullarias. Please keep posting photos of them! Just can't get enough 

I made a trek through the jungles of Malaysia and Indonesia back in the 1980s and snapped a lot of photos of them, and the varieties of colour combinations I saw were amazing. Here's a couple of pics :

Attachments:

[flytrap]

Ha ha ha... I've seen a few recipes on-line, GJ... not sure if I'd want to taste it. But like Bonfield, I've tasted the nectar from my Neps and orchids...as they were dripping with nectar everywhere. Tasted quite sweet, no flavour though

I love ampullarias. Please keep posting photos of them! Just can't get enough 

I made a trek through the jungles of Malaysia and Indonesia back in the 1980s and snapped a lot of photos of them, and the varieties of colour combinations I saw were amazing. Here's a couple of pics :

      

[bonfield]

Lol, I've thought of cooking a few things in Nep pitchers, but they're really more of a wrapper than an ingredient. Basically if you can steam something, you can steam it in a Nep pitcher, you just have to be a little more careful with fillings that will expand during cooking. My issue with using amp pitchers for cooking is that the deep peristome can make it difficult to fully clean the pitcher of its contents. One of Gary's beautiful amps would look pretty enticing with some steamed brownie mix in it!