Drosera capensis Hercules seedlings

I wrote a post about my sundew Drosera capensis Hercules.  Back then I had sown a few seeds and the seedlings were still tiny.  

Some time has passed, the seedlings have grown, I have almost lost my original plant once or twice, and I thought it time to write a blog post about the seedlings.  

Just like in my previous post, I seem unable to take nice looking photos of my Hercules plants.  They do catch incredible numbers of small insects, so it is rare to see a leaf that is nice and dewy without being covered by many tiny dead things.

Drosera capensis 'Hercules' true clone

Seed grown plants (Hercules x self)

Originally, Hercules was registered as an interspecific hybrid between Drosera capensis 'alba' and Drosera aliciae.  Since then things have changed and the current belief is that Hercules is a wide leaf variant of Drosera capensis.

For me this clone seems reluctant to grow from cuttings.  Some are successful, but not the high percent that I normally get from capensis.  

My Hercules plan seems to grow really well, then for some unknown reason it dies back badly.  Then it grows bigger than before, and mysteriously dies back again.  I have come very close to losing this close a few times.  Hopefully I never lose it, it is such a great plant.

Drosera capensis seed grown (Hercules x Hercules)

D capensis Hercules - cutting grown

My parent Hercules plant is the true clone.  This was sent to me as a plant that grew from a cutting taken from the original Hercules plant.  

Judging from what my parent plant has done, and based on what the seedlings are doing, I would be pretty confident that this is not an interspecific hybrid, and is a form of capensis.

The seedlings (Hercules x Hercules) so far are true to type.  I had expected only a small percentage to look similar to the parent, but so far there have not been any off types.  

The seedling grown plants appear the same as the parent in every respect.  They grow the nice wide leaves, and grow a bit slower for me than typical.  They are so similar that if I did not keep them separate I would not be able to tell which was which!

Hercules x self - seedlings

Capensis Hercules grows wide leaves, has the typical colouration, produces many flowers per stalk with the typical colouration, and produces rather large flowers that are more open than 'typical' or 'alba'.  Last year when it flowered I saved some seed, and planted some, but unfortunately lost most of the seed.  This year it is flowering again, hopefully I am able to save and plant some more self crossed seed.

The self crossed seedlings have not flowered yet so I don't know what the flowers will be like, but in every other respect I am unable to tell them apart from the parent.  

If Hercules was the first cross between two different species I would expect to see some diversity in the seedlings.  To be entirely honest, even if this is a spontaneous mutation of pure capensis I would still expect to see some diversity in its seedlings.  I can't explain why the seedlings are so homogenous.  Perhaps there is more to the history of Hercules that I don't know about.  

Hercules - true clone

From here I plan to plant out a bunch more seed, and grow out a few more seedlings.  They appear to grow a bit slower than typical or alba, or at least they have grown slower for me so far.  

If I ever have any spare seed or seedlings for sale I will label them as Hercules x self, or Hercules x Hercules, and offer them through my for sale page.  Being in Australia I can probably can't send them overseas.  I would probably consider a trade for other carnivorous plants.  

Drosera capensis Hercules - cutting grown in live sphagnum moss