Plant of the Month
This month we have picked the lettuce look alike, Carnivorous Drosera Schizandra.
The plant is native to Tropical Queensland Rain forests where it grows besides streams. Its diet appears to be a combination of both small insects and apparently pollen! Compared to other sundews this species may be on its way out of carnivoroy or maybe it's keeping options on the table as it continues along its evolutionary line?
The plant, despite growing in a tropical location, actually prefer things on the cool side in cultivation. A terrarium set up with other humidity liking carnivores can work well on a South facing window. Soil mix? They have preference for a Sphagnum moss based mix. We currently use Sphagnum/Perlite 50:50 ratio.
The plants can get large sometimes the size of a small dinner plate. Under brighter light they remain much smaller without the need to spend energy into gaining more light with larger leaves.
