My growing collection of neps

There's a really sweet honey-like perfume in the area around my shelf. It's coming from the peristome of the harryana pitcher.

This fruit fly noticed the smell too:
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I watched it walk along the ridges on the peristome. The ridges are dry but the channels between them are wet with nectar.
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The fruit fly eventually made its way to the front of the pitcher:
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The ridges taper off into teeth over the pitcher opening. There are no dry ridges for the fly to hang onto in this region of the peristome.
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Some mail from @Avery today.
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It's a rooted cutting from his vining lumut hamata. It's huge and healthy with hardly a single blemish. Can't wait for it to settle in and start pitchering.
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I also got a ventricosa x aristolochioides seedling, one of Avery's own crossings using these as parents:
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It'll be fun to see which traits develop in this plant.
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I haven't posted this truncata in a while. It's probably too cold for it on my large Nepenthes shelf. It hasn't pitchered since last summer and put out just a couple shrunken leaves over the winter. Since it's also taking up a huge amount of space, I moved it to a shelf in the basement where I keep a couple spare 240W LED panels at the start of the year.

Here's the first pitcher it's made since the move:
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One of the older stunted pitchers is visible in the background. It's definitely happier in a warmer room.
 
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Breaking news: Photone on Android actually works reasonably well now.

I previously wrote here (link) that the Photone app on Android suffered from poor accuracy due to the lack of cosine correction, and how I was able to fix this by recalibrating the app against an actual PAR meter while using a makeshift diffuser.

Photone's latest update on Android now includes camera-based detection where you can use a piece of paper as a diffuser, the same way that it works in the iOS app. I've tested it using both an older Galaxy S10 and a newer Galaxy S24, using a flashlight positioned at zenith angles of 0, 30 and 60 degrees.

Here are the measurements:

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And in table form:
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The S24 is reading within 10% of the PAR meter at each angle. The S10 seems to have a bit more cosine error. Both phones are now outputting reasonably accurate readings compared to the actual PAR meter. It's a huge improvement over the old behaviour, and I'd now be somewhat comfortable using the app to measure PAR in my grow area if I didn't have access to a meter.
 
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Some more UV fluorescence stuff.

hamata x edwardsiana: Peristomes fluoresce blue and stay blue with age
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harryana: The peristomes on this plant age to a yellow-orange fluorescence. Photos of fresh pitchers here (link)
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There's a new pitcher about to open too: The bit of visible peristome is fluorescing bright red from chlorophyll.
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veitchii BE-4033: another example where the peristomes start of fluorescing blue and age to orange fluorescence.
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The new harryana pitcher opened today. Just like the previous pitcher, it smells incredibly strongly of honey.
Looking at the photo taken under UV light might explain why: There's a trail of nectaries running down the tendril and up the inner surface of the wings, leading right into the opening of the trap. I can certainly see how crawling insects might follow a trail of nectar like this.
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I've highlighted some of the nectaries here so they're easier to see:
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First villosa pitcher since the plant recovered from fertilizer burn. It's a good amount larger than any of the previous pitchers it's made.
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Also caught harryana's peristomes in the middle of changing fluorescence from blue to orange, about 3 weeks after opening. Not sure what exactly is happening in the peristome to cause the change in fluorescence, but it's interesting to watch.
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Another new pitcher from truncata. It's definitely doing better in a warmer room.
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BE-4099 villosa x hamata recently started pitchering again after a recovering from repotting:

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First upper pitcher on aristolochioides:
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Attempting to pollinate some of the lowii x ventricosa flowers:
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