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I did a repot and took some divisions of my Hummer's Giant ceph and the shock on the cutting may have caused one of the new pitchers to become damaged, resulting in this weird conjoined pitcher that's developing:

If only you could take a pulling and create cephalutus that constantly did that.

Today I noticed it opened up:

That's awesome! I've seen a lot of odd growth on Cephalotus over the years, but I can't recall ever seeing a double pitcher like that!!

Looks like the bud did not properly separate during the stages of meristematic differentiation. Looks like that is only a one-time error.

Very nice though! Take lots and lots of pictures!

Ooh. Meristematic differentiation. I'm going to have to work that into a conversation.

Just an update, here's how it looks like a month later after it colored up a bit.

That’s a pretty amazing Ceph! Where did you get it from? It doesn’t appear to be the true Hummer’s Giant because the midrib is a bit too small. Looks a lot like a clone I received a few years ago called “Hummer’s Giant” that I found was not true after comparing it to the real deal HG which I traced back to John Hummer.

Very cool.

So awesome and so beautiful!! Thanks for posting the update

Nepenthes0260 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 26, 2020 1:47 am That’s a pretty amazing Ceph! Where did you get it from? It doesn’t appear to be the true Hummer’s Giant because the midrib is a bit too small. Looks a lot like a clone I received a few years ago called “Hummer’s Giant” that I found was not true after comparing it to the real deal HG which I traced back to John Hummer.

I got it on ebay from a seller called "brimski". This is a cutting from a larger mother plant. I'm also a bit worried about it being a "true" hummer's giant, but this seller has sold many hummer's giants and all the other pics do express very large midribs and peristomes.

I also see that smaller plant cuttings don't exhibit any traits of hummer's giant. For example, these cuttings' first pitchers are small and don't have a thick peristome, whereas the mother plant has several pitchers with a thicker peristome. I think maybe it's something hormonal, where the rhizome must be big enough to support fully adult pitcher features?

Cutting: Example of seller's other plant: Mother plant: I don't have a truely large pitcher on the mother plant to get a real look yet. Only average sized pitchers.

If anyone's got a source for a actual confirmed true hummer's giant let me know cause I'll be interested

I got my Hummer's Giant from Charles Brewer, a well known ceph breeder who apparently took over for John Hummer after he changed his focus to Sarracenia. He's active in different forums and helps people to know if their plant is the real HG. His clone is the most likely to be authentic as he says he received the plants from John Hummer himself. The cuttings were healthy and the prices were good. Especially compared to some of those snake oil vendors. I found his e-mail through another thread. brewervbch AT aol.com (obviously replace the at). When I e-mailed him, he had some 6mo. established cuttings. Idk what he has going on now though. Good luck!

That's interesting! I know Brimski has the true Hummer's Giant from Charles Brewer, but the plant you have does not look like it. A big tell-tale sign of whether it's the true or fake HG is the size of the midrib running down the center of the plant. I've been growing the fake clone for three years and the real deal HG for around six months. Here are some pictures of my true Hummer's Giant, who I have traced the origins of back to Charles Brewer, who took over Hummer's collection: Now here are a couple specimens of my fake Hummer's Giant. I recently divided my XXL three year old plant so have a lot of them but none super large. Despite one of the fake HGs being much darker, I can assure that they're the same clone. Even though they have different color, both the midrib size on the fake HG clone remain generally the same. Which leads me to my next point- different growing conditions. It is possible that you do have the true HG, however you're growing it in different conditions so naturally the pitcher morphology is different. Still, even under very intense light like what I grow my cephs under, the giant midrib stays the same, which is why I don't believe you have the true HG. Here is a comparison between the two midrib shapes: Additionally, the pitchers of the true HG are much longer compared to the fake HG.

The cutting you showed a pic of does not appear to be the true HG. However, the seller's other plant you shared a picture of looks like the real deal with the giant midrib. It's harder to tell with the mother plant, but it doesn't look like the real deal to me either. It's possible that Brimski got "Hummer's Giant" cephs from two different sources and that one of them is real and the other is not.

It would be interesting if you contacted Brewer and got a hold of the true Hummer's Giant and then grew it side by side with your one from Brimski and after a few months observed the differences .

I'm going to have to contact brimski and check if these were the same plant.

I do see a few older pitchers on the mother plant do have the morphology of a true one. But none as extreme as the one in the seller's other plant. I'm wondering if the size of the pitcher comes into play. For example, in your first picture the smaller pitcher next to your hand doesn't express the larger midrib.

There has to be something related to the plants "age" or size, since the cuttings are clones of the mother plant but express no thick peristome.

I think I have to hope for a 2 incher pitcher to be sure. Right now all these pitchers are sub 1 inchers.

Good idea. I'd contact Brimski (Brian Lipinski) to see if he has any more info.

Oh yes, I didn't see that smaller pitcher. It does have a slightly proportionally less midrib to pitcher ratio. Still, compared to the same size of a fake HG pitcher the midrib on the real one is definitely larger.