FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

so i added a capensis red and a spathulata to my mini bog trough, when i got them saturday they were covered in dew and really healthy.

but repotting them knocked a fair bit of dew off unfortunately. well by today it was about 25% covered in dew again.

a little while ago it rained, just a nice light but constant rain.
my plants were due for a watering so i figured i'd give them their first shower. i was expecting most of the dew to get washed off by doing so, but a small price to pay for giving it a nice drink.

the rain was light enough for me to stand outside in it for 30min, catching water from down pipes into various containers. i ended up with enough to fill a 20L (5gal) water cooler bottle.

so anyway rain stops, i take plants inside back under their light and it looks like every leaf is almost covered in dew again, even little puddles of dew on the stem itself!
i thought it might be water, but lightly touching it with my finger showed it was as sticky as honey, and was stringing from my finger back to the plant almost like pizza cheese.

i test one of the leaf puddles (just looks like a wet leaf but you can see its real thick liquid) and it also is very sticky.

the the added benefit of the light (twin 36w t8 6500k, 2450lm ea bulb, 15hr day) is a second later a bug thats hanging around the light crash landed on the plant into a leaf puddle, and it could not escape. haha


it was like the plant turned the very light rain drops into dew, or just oozed it in utter delight of the rain

In higher humidity the dew gets bigger. Some sellers mist the sundews with water to make nice photos for their e-shops.

have a look at some of the dew on the capensis red. its so thick it clumped the hairs together on the tip of one leaf

i think the capensis look great. I love it how it wraps around the insect.

its cool isnt it?

like the VFT, to me its proof that plants (or at least some types) can actually feel touch and react to it.

the plants are catching sooo many bugs under lights.
yesterday i heard a frustrated fly buzzing angrily. he was stuck in a sarra' pitcher hehe.
today i look, the pitcher is almost full and theres like 3 flies all struggling to escape but cant, and they were only about 2" below the opening coz' its that full.

the vft's traps are catching prey like crazy. more closed with prey than open.
the capensis is catching one or two every day aswell, theres about 4 or 5 leaf's that are curling around prey.
theres actually a bug struggling on one photo. but its hard to see.

Looking good Bliv...I really like your set up and the little sign "Warning Killer Plants" is excellent.

Peace!
E.S.

Great setup, and most of the sundews look like that after a light rain

moof wrote:Great setup, and most of the sundews look like that after a light rain

so is it a good idea to mist "sticky icky" regularly?

and is it spaTHulata or spaTulata? ive seen it spelt both ways on different sites.

You can do that but after a longer period of misting, the dew will become less sticky

Oblivion wrote:and is it spaTHulata or spaTulata? ive seen it spelt both ways on different sites.

spatulata is the correct spelling.

"spathulata" is the result of a misprint in an 1824 publication by French botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle, which started people spelling it incorrectly. Since it happened so long ago, well, old habits die hard.

Thanks for the info, I didn't know that;) interesting

Oblivion wrote:so is it a good idea to mist "sticky icky" regularly?

No- don't mist your sundews regularly. It is not solely water that produces dew. There are enzymes secreted by the plant as well. While it is fine in nature, regular misting can lead to mold and fungus problems on your plants, depending on your conditions. Not saying it will, but I've seen multiple cases where people's plants were declining because they misted them every day.
Ideally, you also want the leaves to be dew-laden so that they're able to catch as many insects as possible, but this isn't normally a problem outdoors for the most part.

Photosynthesis allows the plant to create the dew; more light = more dew. Higher humidity helps, but light is the main factor from my understanding. If it gets a lot of light but the temps are above ~80 all the time, the amount of dew produced will be less as well.

Like sundewman said, you shouldn'thave to mist them. I give my capensis lots of light, and they dew up like crazy in 30% humidity and 80 degree temps.

Veronis wrote:Photosynthesis allows the plant to create the dew; more light = more dew. Higher humidity helps, but light is the main factor from my understanding. If it gets a lot of light but the temps are above ~80 all the time, the amount of dew produced will be less as well.

Higher temp means that the plant wants to limit water losses, and that's why the dew gets smaller. Light is important, because as you've said photosynthesis is needed to create C6H12O6, which can be used to produce the complicated enzymes and substances making part of the "dew", saying it shortly. But still, it has got a lot of water so a plant growing in a dry soil will likely reduce it's dew to almost nothing.