|
Post by vraev on May 2, 2010 12:48:00 GMT -5
i have no clue. lol! Just giving it a shot. lol
|
|
|
Post by dvg on May 2, 2010 15:00:47 GMT -5
The powdery wax on these plants is quite interesting. If the plants are touched, or anything rubs against the leaves where the powder is present, or when they are hit with a good blast from a strong jet spray, the waxy coating is readily and easily removed.
The waxy substance is chalk-like in substrance. I scraped off some of this wax along the back of a leaf with a toothpick. As I scraped along, gathering a small pile of the powdery white substance on the toothpick, I noticed little puffs of exploding dust being kicked up in front of the toothpick. It reminded me of chalkdust, and the vibration of the toothpick being scraped along was enough to set this dust free, into small cloudbursts of very fine wax powder.
I then placed a narrow line of this collected dust on my index finger, and rubbed my thumb and forefinger together. The white powder did not melt away or disappear as I had thought it might. In fact, instead of disappearing, the line of powder remained where it had been placed, caught in place between the ridges of the whorls and grooves of my fingerprint.
And it is that property of the powdery wax, that seems to gum up the suction cups and fine microscopic gripping hairs of the flies trying to escape the watery bowels of the Catopsis trap. My observations of fruit flies trying to escape fom the main bowl was that they seemed to have a very hard time getting their front two feet to grasp onto anything, except for the loose, breaking away and ever-coating wax.
dvg
|
|
|
Post by yves on May 2, 2010 16:07:41 GMT -5
Hi Labine
There is a problem with your Drosophyllum. The lenght between 2 leaves is too big, shouldn't climb like that. Generally it is due to either temperature too hight or a lack of light.
Yves
|
|
|
Post by labine on May 2, 2010 16:53:29 GMT -5
thanks Yves , it is on the windowsill . must be a lack of light.
|
|
|
Post by vraev on May 2, 2010 20:15:56 GMT -5
Nice observations and hypothesis Dvg. I am sure that is part of the story, But, I wonder if the wax has less to do with trapping ability than assumed as regular airplants have a similar form of powdery waxy coating. As far as I know, they don't have water reservoirs or any trapping mechanisms. So, considering your hypothesis, the fact that these are generally plants that are epiphytes growing in dry conditions (for the most part) in my opinion, I think it might be more to do with lowering transpiration in the hot dry air and maximizing absorption and retention when it rains. WHat do you guys think? I just thought of this...its just a hypothesis...but seems more plausible taking the presence of this waxy coating on numerous other epiphytic plants.
|
|
|
Post by vraev on May 2, 2010 22:57:47 GMT -5
yeah..you are right.. I have based it off that. More so the idea is from the same series when they show you the biology of lichens that are red in color normally, but become green upon the mist that appears early every morning.
|
|
|
Post by dvg on May 3, 2010 0:06:30 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by vraev on May 3, 2010 17:24:53 GMT -5
Interesting. I wonder if there are any differences between this powder and the one on other bromeliads such as tillandsia. There don't seem to be too much research done on it. I still personally think it must have an auxillary role in lowering transpiration.
|
|