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Carnivorous Plants

Is my pinguicula going downhill?

6 years ago

last modified: 6 years ago

Hi all, I'm new to growing carnivorous plants and have a pinguicula that I purchased last fall. It originally came in a container mix of peat and small chunks of tan rocks(?). I'm guessing they look like calcined clay? I've never used turface so I'm not sure if they were turface fines.

The leaves were open and flat and had caught a few fungus gnats the first couple months. But now they look like this :(

It's a pinguicula lauena. I've tried holding back on water which slowed down its growth a lot but it still stayed nice and green. I've gone back to watering it but now its lower/outer leaves look thinner and are starting to drying out. I repotted it last week in a mix of peat, perlite, grit. It had a small amount of fine roots. The roots had some peat on them and I didn't want to rip the roots so I didn't really see the color of them.

I really like this one and got lucky getting 2 stuck together in one order. Anyone have any ideas of what my pinguicula is trying to tell me? Thanks for helping me and my pinguicula!

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Comments (3)

Paul MI
6 years ago
If you have a magnifying glass, see if there are little droplets of goo on the leaves. Hard to tell from your photo (would need a much closer shot) whether or not the leaves have gone into the non-carnivorous succulent like mode. During the non-carnivorous stage, the leaves of pings will typically be thicker and lack the slimy droplets on the leaves. They can be kept drier at that stage. When in carn mode, the leaves are usually broader and slimy. During that phase, they can be kept standing in water.

With a bit more light, the leaves will color up with a purplish blush.

Are you growing it on a windowsill or outside? If so, then the change in day length may have induced it to enter non-carn mode as you entered winter. Keeping on the windowsill and thus exposing it to the lengthening daylight should bring it out of the non-carn phase and into carn phase.
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Original Author
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
I've done some searching online to try tell the difference between the succulent leaves and carnivorous one but mine looks not quite like either of them. I'll check with my magnifying loupe for the droplets! A few days ago I took a look at the roots because it was easy to lift it out and they looked brown and dried out, no mushiness thankfully! How long do you think pings take to grow out new roots?

Thanks so much for taking the time/effort to read and comment on my problem Paul!
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Original Author
6 years ago
I checked with my loupe and I don't see any gooey droplets on the leaves. I do see some very short fuzz on the leaves though. Mostly on the new tiny inner leaves that are emerging. Some of the fuzz is on the lower half of the larger leaves but not on the first layer of outer leaves.

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