Sarracenia "Blood of Deucalion"
Feb 4, 2024 1:37:35 GMT -5
meizzwang, stevebooth, and 7 more like this
Post by adaetz100 on Feb 4, 2024 1:37:35 GMT -5
Hi folks. Here's an extremely special one. Grab a coffee, lean back into your comfiest armchair, and let me tell you the story behind this stunner.
At the 2022 BACPS show and sale, I picked up a few plants from Jerry Addington's booth. One plant immediately caught my eye for its interesting red coloration on a minor/excellens form factor. The parentage is Prometheus x Saxapahaw, and clearly the former dominated the shape while the latter dominated the color. Granted, the color wasn't particularly vivid or intense--more of a pastel brick red, fading to green a third of the way down the pitcher--but the unique combination of traits was nonetheless captivating enough for me to snag it immediately. Photos taken June 4, 2022:
After a month in my care, the color was significantly more intense, but these were still the same pitchers that had initially colored up at Jerry's under polycarbonate (presumably) so I wasn't completely sold juuust yet. Photo taken July 5, 2022:
By mid-July, however, I was stunned at the cherry red coloration of brand new, developing, as yet unopened pitchers, produced fully outdoors. Photo taken July 18, 2022:
That pitcher soon turned into an absolute heartstopper. Notice the electric pink areolae. Photo taken August 6, 2022:
I was now drooling over this plant daily, and I think it was around that time that I sent some photos to Phaedra, who had sold me the plant at the show. Her response was something along the lines of "We sold that?!?" She needn't have worried though--I was absolutely desperate to get this clone insured anyway, and I offered to send a piece back in the winter.
In December, I split the clump into three pieces. I sent the largest single growth point back to Jerry's crew, took a smaller single GP division to send to Mike for extra insurance, and kept the rest of the clump to grow out. Fun fact: even the freaking roots of this thing had a pink tint to them! Anthocyanin overload! Less fun fact: there was a bit of rot in Mike's piece, so I ended up cutting the main growth point off entirely, forming essentially a blind division of the rhizome with a tiiiiny side shoot budding off near one end. I figured he'd be up for the challenge! Photos taken December 31, 2022.
My piece and Jerry's piece:
Mike's sad little piece. Pink roots though!
Moving into my first full season with this plant, I wasn't expecting much in terms of color considering the recent division and repot. Nevertheless, it blew me away with this absolutely gorgeous spring bouquet. Vibrant red from head to toe--it stuck out like a sore thumb in the collection on account of the sheer QUALITY of that color. Note the huge clump of Adrian Slack in the back left looking utterly dull by comparison. Photo taken May 28, 2023:
As the summer progressed and the color deepened, I took some nicer shots on the Canon. Here's one from July 17, 2023:
Shortly thereafter, I visited Jerry and took a picture of his piece, which recovered extraordinarily well after division! Photo taken July 22, 2023:
By late summer, the color was pretty much fully saturated. Here's a nice backlit view of the areolae on August 7, 2023:
And by August 24, the mouth/interior had deepened to a blackish satin. Absolutely stunning. Doesn't the structure remind you of 'Deep Throat' a little here?
I didn't see much more of it until the winter since I was off at school, but when I came home, I realized that it had produced an incredible quantity of pitchers throughout the year. The clump was extremely dense, and yet very few pitchers were brown all the way to the base, indicating decent pitcher longevity. Photo taken January 30, 2024:
And you're just about caught up I'd say! I've decided to name this plant "Blood of Deucalion" since Deucalion is the child of Prometheus (just like this plant) and the incredible blood-red color speaks for itself. It's undoubtedly one of my highest quality plants, demonstrating so many favorable traits all at once: phenomenal color quality, excellent vigor, bountiful pitcher production, and a dense, clumping growth habit--plus very robust propagative recovery. While I don't think BoD is going to flower this year, I'm extremely excited to make some crosses with it as soon as I can. Hopefully I'll be able to impart its incredible color and vigor onto different form factors. Anyway, cheers everyone--hope you enjoyed this writeup!
P.S. Mike's division is also alive and well. Actually, that's a huge understatement, but I'll let him do the honors of showing that one off...
At the 2022 BACPS show and sale, I picked up a few plants from Jerry Addington's booth. One plant immediately caught my eye for its interesting red coloration on a minor/excellens form factor. The parentage is Prometheus x Saxapahaw, and clearly the former dominated the shape while the latter dominated the color. Granted, the color wasn't particularly vivid or intense--more of a pastel brick red, fading to green a third of the way down the pitcher--but the unique combination of traits was nonetheless captivating enough for me to snag it immediately. Photos taken June 4, 2022:
After a month in my care, the color was significantly more intense, but these were still the same pitchers that had initially colored up at Jerry's under polycarbonate (presumably) so I wasn't completely sold juuust yet. Photo taken July 5, 2022:
By mid-July, however, I was stunned at the cherry red coloration of brand new, developing, as yet unopened pitchers, produced fully outdoors. Photo taken July 18, 2022:
That pitcher soon turned into an absolute heartstopper. Notice the electric pink areolae. Photo taken August 6, 2022:
I was now drooling over this plant daily, and I think it was around that time that I sent some photos to Phaedra, who had sold me the plant at the show. Her response was something along the lines of "We sold that?!?" She needn't have worried though--I was absolutely desperate to get this clone insured anyway, and I offered to send a piece back in the winter.
In December, I split the clump into three pieces. I sent the largest single growth point back to Jerry's crew, took a smaller single GP division to send to Mike for extra insurance, and kept the rest of the clump to grow out. Fun fact: even the freaking roots of this thing had a pink tint to them! Anthocyanin overload! Less fun fact: there was a bit of rot in Mike's piece, so I ended up cutting the main growth point off entirely, forming essentially a blind division of the rhizome with a tiiiiny side shoot budding off near one end. I figured he'd be up for the challenge! Photos taken December 31, 2022.
My piece and Jerry's piece:
Mike's sad little piece. Pink roots though!
Moving into my first full season with this plant, I wasn't expecting much in terms of color considering the recent division and repot. Nevertheless, it blew me away with this absolutely gorgeous spring bouquet. Vibrant red from head to toe--it stuck out like a sore thumb in the collection on account of the sheer QUALITY of that color. Note the huge clump of Adrian Slack in the back left looking utterly dull by comparison. Photo taken May 28, 2023:
As the summer progressed and the color deepened, I took some nicer shots on the Canon. Here's one from July 17, 2023:
Shortly thereafter, I visited Jerry and took a picture of his piece, which recovered extraordinarily well after division! Photo taken July 22, 2023:
By late summer, the color was pretty much fully saturated. Here's a nice backlit view of the areolae on August 7, 2023:
And by August 24, the mouth/interior had deepened to a blackish satin. Absolutely stunning. Doesn't the structure remind you of 'Deep Throat' a little here?
I didn't see much more of it until the winter since I was off at school, but when I came home, I realized that it had produced an incredible quantity of pitchers throughout the year. The clump was extremely dense, and yet very few pitchers were brown all the way to the base, indicating decent pitcher longevity. Photo taken January 30, 2024:
And you're just about caught up I'd say! I've decided to name this plant "Blood of Deucalion" since Deucalion is the child of Prometheus (just like this plant) and the incredible blood-red color speaks for itself. It's undoubtedly one of my highest quality plants, demonstrating so many favorable traits all at once: phenomenal color quality, excellent vigor, bountiful pitcher production, and a dense, clumping growth habit--plus very robust propagative recovery. While I don't think BoD is going to flower this year, I'm extremely excited to make some crosses with it as soon as I can. Hopefully I'll be able to impart its incredible color and vigor onto different form factors. Anyway, cheers everyone--hope you enjoyed this writeup!
P.S. Mike's division is also alive and well. Actually, that's a huge understatement, but I'll let him do the honors of showing that one off...