Butterwort are insectivorous plants belonging to the genus Pinguicula. They were used to be not available for sale in local nurseries in Singapore. For those of us who wanted to grow this plant, we had to order them from overseas mail-order nurseries. Many of these plants, when they reach Singapore, are barely alive due to the dark, crowded and enclosed conditions they had to endure during the shipping process.
Recently, two butterwort hybrids became available locally. The plants are produced by YG Nursery in Cameron Highlands in Peninsula Malaysia as indicated by the trademark printed on their pots. The ones that appear in the market here are very big, compared to those I got from overseas last time, as they are about 10 cm or more in diameter! Some even came with flowers too. They have become a novelty plant to the locals here and sold like hotcakes.
Below is one of the two hybrids that I bought: Pinguicula x ‘Tina’ (Pinguicula agnata x Pinguicula zecheri) when I first got it:
I grew the plant under two T5 fluorescent light tubes that are turned on for about 12 hours daily, without air-conditioning. Apparently, this hybrid can tolerate the heat quite well. Not many pings can be grown under our hot and humid climate. After a few months after I first got it, offsets quickly appeared and below is a recent picture I took and one can easily see, the single plant I have earlier in the same pot had become a colony of plants:
I decided that I need to split that clump up as the colony looks very crowded. I took the plant out of the pot, removed the sphagnum moss and found the tiny root system that the colony had. One can easily trace out the evident root ball formed when the plant was first raised in a seedling flat:
Altogether, I found that my ping colony had seven growing points. Each were carefully divided and I ensured that each offset was taken out with at least some roots attached.
The offsets were then transferred them into a disaposable food container using damp sphagnum moss as the growing medium for now:
I kept them covered to conserve humidity so that they are given some time to recover from the shock suffered from the traumatic dividing process.
