Hydnophytum caminiferum and some other ant plants

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Plant
I'm posting this H. caminiferum because honestly I don't feel like it'll last much longer for me. It's probably a combo of me not really knowing how to care for ant plants along with shipping in the cold (the box insides was really chilly). It's been limping along for the last 2 months but so far no new leaves. Might as well get a picture in before it actually dies. However this is one of my favorite antplant species, the mysterious giant funnels that nobody knows what for are so intriguing. Hopefully this one pulls through, or I'll try again once it's warmer.

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Some other baby ant plants:
Squamellaria huxleyana
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Hydnophytum dentrecastense" Normanby Island, Papua NG"
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Currently I have everything in some small aquarium or in a baggy, I'm going to need to set up a lowland grow area soon.
 
stunning

H.caminiferum for me it is a magnificent and extraordinary specimen, unfortunately I don't have one, not reactive enough to buy one from WISTUBA

What substrate do you grow it in?

have you others species?
 
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My antplants take a long time to grow more leaves so this could be fine. I syringe in 3 cc. of Schultz orchid fertilizer (low concentration) every 6 weeks or so, which seems to promote growth.
 
for my part in fact to compensate for the nitrogen substances of the ants I use green plant fertilizer type NPK 25-5-5 but also NPK 12-32-14 for the roots and NPK 13-19-19 for the flowers and fruits (drupes)
 
These 3 are my only ant plants I have so far, I only recently got into ant plants. Another one of my goals is Squamellaria kajewskii although I haven't seen one at a reasonable price yet. I have a few more coming in the mail to try out this week (a couple of other Squamellaria and a Myrmephytum).

The pot I received had the plant in 100% sphagnum from what I remember. I repotted it in a mix of sphagnum, perlite, orchid bark, and a small dash of regular soil.

I'll probably try giving these a light application of fertilizer this week. Also I noticed that putting water in the chimneys of the H. caminiferum has it drain out the bottom under the soil line. Not sure if that's a feature of the plant or if it's a bit of damage from shipping resulting in some fissure or hole somewhere.
 
My ant plant also drains into the pot if I put over about 3 cc of water into the openings.
 
Well, a small update. I see some new leaves popping out, and also the overall caudex is less wrinkly and more smooth looking now, which I hope it means that it's actively taking up water again.
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I also started on a small project for a lowland antplant terrarium made out of some polycarbonate sheets, and my collection expanded a tiny bit:

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I also got some ant ferns like Lecanopteris balgooyi, but this L. linguiformis I have mounted on the pegboard I couldn't find much information on. It doesn't really look like like the other Lecanopteris species, and it's not listed on the wiki as an ant fern. Not sure what is it's relationship to the other Lecanopteris. If anyone has some info on it I'd love to know:

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My Myrmecodia schlechteri subsp. pendula is also flowering, and I got 13 seeds from two fruits that it selfed. The sprouting took around 3 days.
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I've no idea how the flowers work on these plants. Looking it up it seems like there should be 3 types of flowers with maybe one type being able to self if lucky. I tried dissecting one to check the pollen but every single day I checked there was no pollen released.

Then today I checked and I see this random fruit on a flower I didn't touch. The time difference between these two pictures is a few hours short of 3 days, that feels remarkably fast for a fruit to develop and ripen.


Myrmecodia schlechteri subsp. pendula "Sagarai Valley, Papua NG"
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In fact, the system is quite complicated.
We can have cleistogamous and heterostylous flowers (quite common in Hydnophytum, Myrmecodia, Anthorrhiza, but sometimes also in Myrmephytum, while Squamellaria is homostylous), but also autogamous and heterogamous.
Cleistogamy is a type of automatic self-pollination in certain plants that can reproduce through the use of unopened self-pollinating flowers.
If the styles are of different lengths, we speak of heterostyly, while if the stamens are of different lengths, we speak of heteroanthy.
 
Is there a good source of information on which species can or cannot (or is unknown) to be self-fertile?
 
Here's the progression on my Myrmecodia schlechteri subsp. pendula "Sagarai Valley, Papua NG" seedlings:

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The middle pot is 30 days old and the two side pots with 1 and 4 seedlings is 22 days old at this point.
Strange that it feels like the ones sown on peat is a bit thinner than the ones on sphagnum, not sure if a weeks worth of growth would make that difference.

I've also collected a seed from the following:
Myrmecodia spec North Sumatra (3 seeds from a berry)
Hydnophytum formicarum Singapore (2 seeds from a berry)

as well as more berries from the M. schlechteri, I got a 6 seed berry recently. I have a little conveyor belt of seeds from this plant now it seems.

Anyone know how long the seeds can store for? Since they sprout so fast, I'm not sure how viable they would be if stored dry or refridgerated.
 
It's unfortunate though as it makes trading seeds harder. Has anyone done any experiments refrigerating or just dry-storing the seeds for a week to see if they're viable still?

I'd be up to sacrifice some seeds, but if someone has already tried and they're 100% dead in a week in then I don't want to waste any of my seeds, haha.
 
For my part, I had seeds shipped from Australia to France. The journey took about 10 days, and they were still ready to germinate.

You can also extend the life by leaving them in their drupe.
 
So I've noticed that the seeds I've sown on a top layer of sphagnum vs the seeds sown on a layer or organic material (peat with a bit of soil) have grown differently. Both of these pots contain Myrmecodia schlechteri subsp. pendula seeds, with the sphagnum pots being 49 days old now and the peat one being 41 days old. I don't think a week's worth of time can account for the differences in shape anymore.

Notice how the sphagnum seedlings are more round, while the peat ones were taller and have a smaller caudex.

The two pots are in basically the same spot in the grow area. I can only imagine the differences being in pH or moisture (maybe the airy sphagnum is less waterlogged).

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