Words and phrases that mean something
I really resonate to the phrase I now use as my blog’s title “Change Damaged Characters”.
Why?
- First, it is a term used in copyediting in the Common Proofreading Marks handy reference chart I use. It indicates that the characters (letters etc) that are circled in the text have not printed correctly and need to be altered.
- Second, because it encapsulates my feelings about the personalities and mentalities of many of the well-meaning but misguided people I meet and hear about in my long journey through life.
Another phrase I use is mucous trooper, in fact it is one of my email addresses mucoustrooper@tobiasware.com and it is my username on YouTube. What is a mucous trooper?
Simply put it is the idiosynchratic stupidity of the ‘concientious’ employee still soldiering on at the office/factory/school because “work would grind to a halt without me” even though they are infected with a contagious disease, which, consequently, spreads across the entire workforce causing a severe reduction in productivity and a potential temporary closure of business due to a viral epidemic which could easily have been prevented by the ignorant, misguided, stubborn and, above all, infectious employee taking a few days off due to illness.
It’s come a long way from the small bud measuring 2 cm tall. It now measures nearly 8 cm tall and has filled out, inflated in fact and is almost ready to pop open its lid.
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WE can now see the effects of a couple of days of constant rain. Humidity at 90% or higher and fairly high temperatures suit pitcher plants.
Still little change – this can continue for a while.
Two days ago there was a showing of colour and some inflating and definition change. Today the trend continues.
Note the beard
Side shot
Still very slow development, but there’s plenty of time yet.
Still no change
There has been significant development over the last few days. The pitcher bud, although still a closed bud, is inflating, elongating, and gaining its reddish colouring. Also note the development of the ‘hairs’ or ‘beard’ on the lower lip and ridges.
More pictures over the next few days.
Showing the inflation
Colours are coming in now
ANother view of those reds
Different side angle
Hi all, The bud is growing beautifully. It is slightly curling, elongating and defining.
Mardi Gras
I thought I’d show a picture of what it will end up like.
Mature Mardi Gras pitcher
I decided I should show my collection as a group.
Here are some poor shots. I’ll take better ones when I have a little more time to take better care.
In this first shot you can see the size of the Nepenthes “Mardi Gras” compared to the other pitchers. To give this some scale: the green water tank on the left is a 100 litre tank… still no sense of size? OK, the length of the slightly lower pitcher on the centre top plant with the blue tag (N. “Mardi Gras”, the one with the really red lips [peristome]) is 250mm/9.84 inches. The bud on the far right of that same plant is the bud I am chronicling in this blog. The two plants hanging in the small green pots are Nepenthes mirabilis varieties. I bought them from Bunnings, just up the road from my home, when I say bought I mean pretty well rescued them as they were drying out. N. mirabilis are native to Queensland. My first Tropical pitcher, over twenty years ago, was a mirabilis and it survived horrible treatment – eroded potting mix in a large but only partly filled pot with constant drip from a tap with town water – not rainwater. It survived for a few years until it couldn’t take it any more. I’ve learnt a lot since those days, thank goodness.
Nepenthes hangers
This next shot is of my Trumpet pitcher plant experimental swamp gardens. They require boggy conditions and this is the beginning of their second year in these long troughs. The larger central pot partly in shot, bottom centre of the first photo, will house the more prostrate forms later this month, and some of the smaller prostrate forms will end up in a couple of self-watering pots just “vacated” today by two of the Tropical pitchers. I found they were too wet and one thing a tropical pitcher hates is very wet feet.
Sarrecenia
This next shot is of Drosera binata, bifurcated long stemmed sundews. I have two specimens a golden (in the green pot) and an extrema. These two have just been repotted from larger pots as they need to have a good aerated potting mix with good flow through for water.
Drosera binata
The two long stemmed sundews at the left of this next shot are Drosera filiformis, they are a native to Queensland and usually go dormant in the drier and hotter months. They are new to my collection. The other three pots on the right are the very common Drosera capensis Cape Sundews. I have three different varieties.
Drosera collection
Slow growth means more of the same type of images. I’m keeping a close eye out for changes but limiting my shots to every other day until real changes happen.
Day 9 Nepenthes "Mardi Gras"
HooSedWot