The flower perked up the next morning.

I named the larger butterwort "Al", the one with the flower which I featured yesterday. The flower is tiny and takes time to grow and open. The stem gets to a height of five or six inches (12-15 cm) and towers above the carnivorous leaves below. The reason is that it wants to keep from catching the pollinators.

Next let's talk about the other butterwort, pinguicula morensis, that took that motorcycle ride to my door the other day.

The brother

Today I am featuring "Eric" which is the smaller of the two that arrived via messenger moto service. To give you an idea of how big they are, the pot is two and a half inches wide (7 cm).

Notice that the inner leaves are small and thick (the succulent phase) and the outer leaves from last summer are wide, flat and would normally be coated with sticky enzymes (for the carnivorous phase).

During the winter, these plants conserve energy and revert to their succulent form then in the spring time, they flower incessantly for a month or so before growing the new, bigger, floppy, sticky leaves to catch gnats and other bugs.

The butterworts (pinguiculas) live in a nutrition free environment. Moss provides no nutrition and distilled water provides moisture with no minerals. That is what these guys need. They get the nutrition they need from insects that get stuck to their leaves.

I wanted to see them eat the first day, but I did not know that they had two kinds of leaves depending on what season it is. Eric did eat very small insects in the first week or two, but medium to full grown gnats landed and just took off again.

The plants do not produce the quantity of digestive enzymes to catch gnat during their succulent phase. There is some, but not much. Bugs were attracted by the scent they create, which is quite pleasant.

Propagation

Pulling a leaf off and placing it on the surface of moist moss, is said to produce a baby plant.

I did not know that normal potting soil kills butterworts, so my first leaf pulling went right into potting soil and within 18 hours, the baby plant looked like this. It is at the bottom of the curved leaf. Looks like five little lumps. I named it 'Val'

You have to let them grow for some time before replanting can take place. They have no roots and draw their sustenance from the leaf to which they are attached. I learned a few weeks later that potting soil is a no-no and changed this one over to moss and distilled water.

More pictures of Val and her big brothers coming soon.

_{all pictures taken by me}