Here's an update after a long absence from this thread.
Unfortunately not long after my last post and despite what I thought was ample protection a robin (
Turdus migratorius) completely destroyed the surface media and Ceph seeds in my two pots.
I felt more anger towards myself than I did to the robin as the exact same thing happened to my Ceph ‘Eden Black” x self seeds the previous summer and I had vowed to completely bird proof my outside seeds setup. Yet I had underestimated the tenacity of the Robin once again and paid dearly.
Fortunately I had saved some of the Ceph seeds I got from John(snapperhead51) in case something disastrous happened to the seeds outdoors. As I was fed up with losing my seeds/seedlings outside I sowed the remaining Ceph seeds from John inside. I placed the uncovered pot under T5HO lighting next to my Nep seedling humidity domes. It was late Summer, I watered the pot along with my other plants and waited.
By late Fall, a sucker for punishment I bought 10 additional Ceph seeds from a US grower. Just like the seeds from John I presoaked for 24hrs and sowed the seeds immediately without any cold stratification. I placed these seeds in a pot right next to the pot of seeds from John, the only difference was that I placed the newly acquired seeds inside the humidity dome amongst my Nep seeds/seedlings.
Winter arrived, there was no sign of life from either batch of seeds by mid-december. But knowing Cephs seeds can take a long time to germinate I still had a little bit of hope. Yet having never had success germinating Ceph seeds indoors I wasn’t feeling confident either.
After going away for the holidays I checked on the pots early in the new year and to my great surprise I thought I saw Ceph cotyledons emerging from both pots. But as Ceph cotyledons looks similar to many other plants I wanted to wait until I could be sure to celebrate.
Well thanks to my hand lens I can now confirm that I have little Cephs:
C. "Two People's Bay" x "Gull Rock Road" from John, producing it's first tiny pitcher.
Most produce one true leaf followed by a carnivorous leaf.
But some also start life producing two true leaves before any pitchers.
Seeds from Jcal.
I guess what I found sort of interesting is that both pots of seeds, sown months apart, from different sources, lineages, that experienced consistent artificial lighting, germinated at the same time. As much as I try to keep my indoor growing conditions fairly consistent,t here must have been some enigmatic factor that favored germination in both sets of seeds despite the differences.
Thanks to John and Jcal for the seeds!