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Does anyone have any experience cultivating winter-growing Drosera like cistiflora, pauciflora, or hilaris? I have some seed sown in 4 in pots in a medium of 2 parts washed sand to 1 part peat moss. I gave all my seeds a 24 hour smoke treatment before I sowed them. It is my understanding that winter-growing Drosera need several weeks of warm stratification to induce germination.

Any insight or feedback regarding growing the above mentioned species would be greatly appreciated.

I don't know about them, actually just baught some seeds myself, why does one smoke treat them?

Hey backerrobert,

It is my understanding that winter-growing sundews need smoke to help induce germination. This is particularly true with D. pauciflora...in the wild, this species won't even bloon unless the site has been burned previoulsly from a wildfire. The smoke from the fire helps trigger germination. D. cistiflora, D. hilaris, and D. pauciflora also need several weeks of warm stratification for germination to be successful.

Roridula is another South African species that greatly benefits from a smoke treatment to help them germinate.

I hope this helps!

Jip it does thanx!! Makes sense, I don't have access to liquid smoke, how else do I treat these seeds?

Hey backerrobert,

Silverhill Seeds in South Africa sells smoke dics. They are inexpensive to buy, and there is 5 or 6 to a pack. The instructions on how to use them are simple and straight forward...place one smoke disc in 50 mL of water and let the seeds soak for 24 hours and then sow them on their preferred medium. A good germination medium for winter-growing sundews is 2 parts horticultural (washed) sand to 1 part peat moss. After you sow the seeds, keep them at around 78 degress F for 4 to 6 weeks. Water the seeds and then let them dry out completely. Repeat the watering and drying out cycles for 4 to 6 weeks while they are stratifying. They need to experience wet/dry cycles to help them germinate while they are stratifying. Germination should occur approximately 60 to 90 days after sowing.If sown at the appropriate time, this will occur between October and December.

Be sure to keep the sown seeds out of direct sunlight.

-dscoots76-

Okei great thank you! that really helps alot!!

One other factor I wanted to emphasize is the temp. A friend of mine got by without the warm strat or any smoke treatment by keeping them in a highland setup with a max day temp of "rarely ever... higher than 82F and routinely dropped to the 50s or lower at night". So during that cooler time of year, as Derick mentioned, they will fall in that sweet spot for germination temps. Hot strat and his additional tips should especially help seeds that are not fresh.
Good luck with them!

Aaron,

You bring up up a very good point regarding the daytime and the drop in nightime temperatures with these winter-growing sundews. This helps to mimic what the seed would experience in mother nature. Thank you for the additional insight and feedback!

I sowed some D.cistiflora, D.hilaris, and D.pauciflora seeds this summer. If everything goes well, they should germinate later this fall. I think out of the 3 species mentioned, the pauciflora seeds that I sowed will be the most reluctant to germinate with the hilaris seeds coming in at a close second.

Good growing,

-Derick-

I recieved my seeds and at the moment I am following a tip I read somewhere which yielded good results... This guy ties his seeds to the central heating unit in a brown paper bag for a few months and it works wonders. Now I don't have that, Its quite warm here where I live, so I tied the to a light that gets relatively warm, using it as supplemental lighting for my VFT's. I am going to wait a month and then smoke treat them, I made a block of sphagnum peat and I'm going to burn it, kill the flames and put it in a glass jar, the seeds will be in there too, seperate from the "coal", I'm then going to close up the jar and let them sit in the smoke for a hour or so, then continue with the heat stratification until autumn, I will plant them on wet media, and let it dry out completely, then I will start to water and kjeep the media moist. Hoping this works, winter temps here are very cold so temperature isn't an issue if I wait for the right time:) Will make another post if this works, just 6 more months

I happy to report that I have many D. cisitiflora and D. pauciflora have germinated and are doing well!

I'm new to growing CP's from seed this year (2023) & I was able to successfully germinate D. cistiflora, D. hilaris, D. pauciflora, & R. gorgonias after smoke treatment with encouragement from this thread. Thanks to the contributors!