The West Australian Pitcher Plant

beetleman · Post by **beetleman** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 9:40 am

Cephalotus follicularis The only place this plant is found is a narrow costal strip in extreme southwestern Australia only 250 miles long. Almost everything on this plant pitcher is designed to funnel insects into the pitcher so it can slide into the mouth and fall into the digestive juices inside and provide nitrogen for the plant. They do produce nector along the red ribbed mouth but it is very slippery and once they fall in....they never come out. I bought this plant off of E-bay. They do tend to be a little pricey and I have found it fairly easy to grow. It is one of those plants that are rather hard to come by. The whole plant turns bright red under full sun. I grow this one under fluoresent bulbs. Both pictures are stacks (30 pics) using Helicon Focus. The distance between the red ribs on the mouth is 1mm for scale

F/16
ISO200
Canon 400D with Canon 100mm Macro
Full frame

JoanYoung · Post by **JoanYoung** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 9:57 am

What an interesting plant and pics Doug. We have one here which uses the same process but it is a long tube-like plant, almost like an upside-down vase. If I see one again, I will remember to take a pic of it for you.

MacroLuv · Post by **MacroLuv** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 10:04 am

Plant with lips!

Great shots!

As I see you are becoming familiar with your 400D.

beetleman · Post by **beetleman** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 10:28 am

Thanks Joan & Nikola. I would love to see a south African Carnivorous Pitcher Plant. If you do a search of the forums for sundews, you will see some of the other pictures I have posted from my small collection of Carnivorous Plants and this one here.
http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... arnivorous

JoanYoung · Post by **JoanYoung** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 10:38 am

Ours looks almost like the one in the link Doug, and also has a "lid". Maybe tomorrow I will browse around the nurseries and see if I can find one for you.

That is, if I don't decide to go away for a few days like I am thinking of doing.

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 10:39 am

Great looking photos with the new camera Doug, didn't take you long eh?

How do you like that 100mm macro?

jmlphoto · Post by **jmlphoto** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 11:20 am

amazing, i used to have a bunch of venus fly traps there so cool i would purposely catch things and toss em in.

Gordon C. Snelling · Post by **Gordon C. Snelling** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 11:25 am

mm Love Cephalotus, one of my favorite CPs.

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 11:43 am

Jordan replied:

i would purposely catch things and toss em in.

...yeah I have a mean streak too!

beetleman · Post by **beetleman** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 12:25 pm

Thanks everyone for the comments....Ken, Today is the first day I strapped the 100mm on and I go and do a stack. I think I am going to like it very much.

cactuspic · Post by **cactuspic** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 6:42 pm

Great pictures of an interesting plant. I can see you are enjoying your new camera. Can't wait to see the stack.

Irwin

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 8:03 pm

cactuspic wrote:Can't wait to see the stack.

Um, weren't these them?

--Rik

MacroLuv · Post by **MacroLuv** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 9:08 pm

Back to school to read the whole story.