FlyTrapCare Forums

We have a small Lowii that looks great except for one thing—it hasn't shown any sign of getting a new leaf in weeks. It unfurled its last leaf and there was just no growth point, and there still isn't any sign of one, even if you look deep into the leaf. The plant has healthy waxy leaves and a couple of very nice pitchers and there's a new pitcher forming on its last leaf. We recently moved it about 6 weeks ago from an indoor terrarium to our outdoor greenhouse when conditions became appropriate for a highland plant. None of our other transitioned plants had any trouble acclimating. Anyone else have this trouble, or know what could be causing it?

That is very weird, maybe the growth point is super tiny and hiding under the part of the leaf that has yet to unfurl? I've seen something similar to this before, when the newest leaf of the plant opened there was a tiny nub thing instead of a growth point. Nepenthes lowii is a very slow grower and is sometimes even called Nepenthes slowii If the growth point is not hiding beneath the part of the leaf that has yet to unfurl the plant will most likely produce a basal shoot.

I broke the growth point off a museum's N. Dactylifera while planting them a cool setup to use for Elementary-school science education. Now there's two dactyliferas. I divided them a few days ago, and now the terrarium has two happily growing dactys. They are also slow growers.

Fear not, plants are amazing.

My son decided to repot the Lowii because the medium seemed compacted around the roots. Does this look like a healthy root system for this plant? The roots themselves appear healthy, but he's worried that it's not robust enough to support a plant this size, and wondering if that could be contributing to the lack of growth.

Hmm. It looks fine as nepenthes have a shallow root system normally. But the whole growth point thing is still weird to me.

That root system looks good, like Benny said, they have shallow root systems. I was watching a youtube video and a similar thing happened to a Nepenthes veitchii, but with the veitchii the growth point was greatly reduced, it didn't disappear.

Honestly just chill and enjoy your plant. Plants are living, It's not like a prized family China that can break and not repair. These things are living, and, as such, they repair themselves.

I thought some of my helis were goners, but since then, I've had my H. Uncinata just go mature after keeping it in some sucrose-soaked LFS. Impressive, how plants can grow and adapt.