It was one fine day on Saturday. In the middle of June, here in Pooler, Georgia, USA, the outside temperature is in range between 90-95 degree with damp and little bit humid. I love this humid and warm weather which I missed since I left my country Indonesia in 2003. I took my daughter to have grocery shop as routine activity in the weekend, but we stopped in local Nursery where I have tried two times but they were always close on Sunday.
Anyway...see what I got! A small hanging basket of Pitcher Plant. Oh my God, I was so glad to find them here in Pooler. It had been a while, I would like to collect this plant, but it was only in my mind, I did not do search to find them out seriously.
Pithcer plants are carnivorous plants. They called Nephentes or Monkey Cup. Pitcher plant or Nephentes is belong to the family Nepenthaceae. The story of Monkey Cup was because monkeys used to drink water in the pitcher. This plants have unique of shape, size, and the color of the tube. In the wild, Pitcher plants were found in the Forest attached at the stem or branch of tree with humid atmosphere and fair amount of sun exposure. They were found in North of Australia, South-East Asia, South of China and Madagaskar. The common North American plants that are also called pitcher plants are of the family Sarraceniaceae.
Indonesia has many variety of species than other country. Pitcher plant called "Kantong Semar" in Indonesia is considered one of rare plants. They are found in almost forest in Sumatera Island. Now days, this plant became rare because they cut the tree for land clearing to build residency or other commercial issue, forest fire or people just simple go to the forest take and sell them without trying to propagate or cultivate. It sound horrible. For those reason, Pitcher Plants are protected by Indonesian Law.
The reason called carnivorous plant is because they eat meat such as bugs or insects that they use as nutrient for their natural growing condition. The leaf form as a rolled leaf like a tube. They use their tube-shaped leaf to attract the bugs, then trap and digest them. When bugs or Insects are trapped in the tube, they barely escape from it. The surface of the tube is often slippery. When they start to digest the insect, they used to close their tube with upper its leaf which function as lid. The insects or bugs are digested by an enzymes called Proteolase. This enzym create nutrient for them. The reason of picthers catch insects as their nutrient because of lacking of nutrient in soils in which they grow. The enzymes in the pitcher dissolve and digest their prey to aid in growth. So, do not fertilize them.
When the plant is still young, the tube is closed, as they are growing they start to open the tube. To attract the bugs or insects, Pitcher plant has beautiful reddish around the tube lips, and spread sweet smell to the insects. However Pitcher has variety of colors ranging from black, red, purple, green.
1 comments:
good picture
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