FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hey guys it’s been a while. My nepenthes hamata has been doing very well lately, 5 of the pitchers that seemed to be frozen in time have finally started putting on some growth. Fast growth at that. This plant has also sprouted a basal(or some sort of miniature leaf) and its turned into a slightly unhealthy color. My guess is that with all this new growth the basal is struggling to find the energy to grow. Maybe this is just a false alarm but if not I don’t want to cut off any pitchers, but I also don’t want to let the basal die. Any ideas?

Really nice looking hamata! Definitely one of my favorite HL species. And also... what’s that plant in the background? Kinda looks like an eddy or eddy hybrid...

I would not worry about that basal. If the main plant was growing slower and not pitchering it probably decided to make a second growth point, but now that it’s growing much better that second growth point may remain inactive till the main plant is larger. That’s a really young nep to be making a second growth point-- I have some hamatas 3”-4” wide and they’re not even making second growth points yet.

Thanks you! And same here it’s such an interesting species. The plant in the background is a spath eddy you guessed it lol. I’m impressed that you recognized that when the teeth weren’t even visible, although the color is pretty unique.

Okay that’s good to hear. It’s weird though the basal popped up a couple days after several of the pitchers started growing. It’s almost definitely because I hooked the light up with a timer to give more natural conditions though. My 3 other plants in that terrarium are hybrids which have always thrived so I probably got too relaxed with my conditions for a pure species. Maybe the little guy was trying to muster up that basal a while ago and it just started growing when I gave it better conditions or maybe all the energy it saved up is just exploding out now lmao. Seems like I just have to watch and see what happens. And huh I guess it is odd for mine to be doing that so early but it’s probably a good thing that yours haven’t felt the need to sprout any! I’ll just wait to see what happens with the second growth point but if something happens I’ll update this. Thanks for the info!!

For sure! Gotta love hamata. It's a great species, quite easy, and the pitcher to leaf ratio is just awesome.

Nice haha! Eddy has a specific leaf shape too that comes across in a lot of the hybrids. And eddy hybrids tend to always grow orangey/red pitchers.

No problem! Definitely update, I'd love to know how it turns out. That's the first time I've seen a hamata make a basal at that stage. Do you know what clone it is?

I agree, it’s probably my favorite species. I love the evolution from the lower to upper pitchers. Once you figure the hamata out it’s a vigorous grower I really love that.

I see what your saying about the leaf shape, it’s quite pretty. I only have one eddy hybrid but from what I’ve seen the eddy parentage is always apparent and I’m glad that it’s especially so with the spath eddy.

I will! We’ll see how it turns out. I believe it’s AW clone 1, or if I’m reading the tag wrong and the clone number doesn’t read as “AW-N_ham-01(male) then it’s clone 3. Pretty sure the 3 on the tag means the third in a batch. Do you know of any trait differences between the different clones? For example from AW NA and BE.

Yeah for sure. Hamata tends to be a lower light species though so I've had problems in the past with burning it. And still, clone 1 is more sensitive to light than clone 2, for me.

AW-N_ham-01 is clone 1, and is male. He also lists on the tags he sends out how many bought, which may be where the 3 is from.

I only grow the AW clones so don't know about the BE ones, and I don't even grow all of the Wistuba ones. But here are pics of my largest Gunung Lumut Clone 1 and Lumut Clone 2. The main distinguishing feature of clone 1 is the constricted peristome. It's more like ( ) instead of the other hamatas which are like ( ), if you get what I'm trying to say. Clone 2 just seems to be a cookie-cutter perfect G. Lumut hamata clone. Very vigorous too. Grow quite dark. I don't grow 3 or 4, but of the pics I've seen they appear a lot more red than 1 and 2. 3 and 4 look very similar.

So far my hamata has soaked up the light despite what I’ve heard and hasn’t gotten burned but I’ll definitely watch out for it since I have a clone 1.

Those are some beautiful plants! I see what your saying about the peristome shape though I can already see the correspondence on mine.

This is a picture of my hamata from just now. Unfortunately the basal died but it’s probably for the best, childhood pregnancies aren’t good. It seems to really be thriving.

Nepenthes0260 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 14, 2021 11:24 pm That’s a really young nep to be making a second growth point-- I have some hamatas 3”-4” wide and they’re not even making second growth points yet.

A lot of the hamatas I have growth points and they are even smaller than Max’s. One of them even had 5 total! Sadly I had not learned of their tendency to get crown rot back then and got a lot of water on the growth points

sanguinearocks101 wrote:

Nepenthes0260 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 14, 2021 11:24 pm That’s a really young nep to be making a second growth point-- I have some hamatas 3”-4” wide and they’re not even making second growth points yet.

A lot of the hamatas I have growth points and they are even smaller than Max’s. One of them even had 5 total! Sadly I had not learned of their tendency to get crown rot back then and got a lot of water on the growth points

Unfortunately that is a common issue... my first ham from AW rotted as well . It does like a moist media though, so it is a very careful balance. Would be much easier if it was like truncata that will grow and pitcher happily when dry.