The Worlds Fastest Plant - Drosera glanduligera

This is the world's fastest carnivorous plant, Drosera glanduligra or otherwise known as Viglod. This set of seeds was given to us by one of our subscribers, Wretched Dave and if you don't know him yet, well he's kind of a legend on this channel. He's given us tons of seeds, tons of resources, lots of different information and he's generally a really nice guy so you must get to know him now. In this episode we are going to be sowing these seeds. We'll be talking about their germination, their stratification, where they're from and a little bit more as to why they are one of the fastest plants on earth. So let's get to it. Now let me tell you something about these guys over here. They are actually not that easy to grow. They require super hot summer stratification. They need to be sitting in the hot baking sun because where they're native to, Australia, it is very hot. Trust me, I know. I live here. So these guys need to be in the sun and that's kind of their stratification. Some people say they need smoke treatment, they also need fire treatment, all these different types of stratifications but honestly no one really knows for sure. The person that gave these to me, Richard, says in one of his forum posts that these guys generally sprout after a lot of heavy rain which sustains one to two days. So what we will do, we will sow these guys up on our soil and I'm just going to put them straight outside under the sun on a flood table where they'll stay nice and wet. Now obviously that's not the only thing about them that's a struggle. These guys as far as I know are also annuals. What that means is that they will grow for only a year. They will send up a flower, set seeds and the mother plant will die off and the next generation will come from these seeds that the flowers leave behind. But before we go and sow these guys up, I want to tell you their basic requirements really quickly. They need lots of sun. They need to be outside in full sunlight. They need to be sitting in distilled water or rainwater just like all carnivorous plants. They need to have sandy soils, so peat and sand. I'm actually using our secret recipe that we made in one of our older videos. Humidity like most carnivorous plants don't really care. You need to feed these guys a lot because they are annuals if you want them to do well. But I can't think of anything else besides stratification which I've already told you. So that was a quick 40 seconds. Let's go and sow them up. Now if you're wondering where exactly these seeds are from, I did say they're from Australia but specifically they are from somewhere in Southern Australia and I actually don't know where they are yet because on these two USBs which were in the same little blue package that we got from Richard, these USBs contain the actual footage of the area that these specific Drosophila dangeligerus grow somewhere in South Australia where our subscriber Richard Davin got it from for us. So if you want to find out what is exactly on these USBs, where exactly this plant came from, you guys need to make sure you subscribe to the channel because I go through all the USBs that he sends us. So make sure that you do do that. So next up what we're going to do, I'm going to take out the seeds. I'm going to show you how they look. You can see they are very very small. Drosophila seeds are generally tiny. Most carnivorous plant seeds are really really small. But I will open them up put them on the paper and then from the paper we put it onto the soil which I've already made. So let's open this up real quick. That just rolled off and I nearly spilled seeds everywhere. Okay well you can see the seeds are all stuck up in here. Let me try knock them out. Okay well we've got like four or five out. So let's see if I can get a good look at them. That's about as far as the camera will zoom with. As you can see they're quite round so that means that they can roll around very easily. Which is very important for them especially out in the wild. If they're round they can roll around in the soil. Because you know as I said these guys bake in the heat. What they will generally do when the soils get super dry and most probably they become you know pretty hard kind of a clay like. They might roll on the surface a little bit you know not very far because the plants are really small. But they'll just roll on the surface a bit and that really helps them with that. So that's why they're so round. Other than that I can't see much else. I don't know where the little magnifying glass is that we have. But when you get your seeds off most carnivorous plants you'll tap some out onto a white piece of paper just like we have here. I'm not going to do them all in case they don't germinate. I would like to try some more experiments with them. So this is as much as we will be sowing up. But now we will take a little round seeds of the world's fastest plant. Sow it up onto the soil and I'll tell you why they are the world's fastest plant. Now you guys have seen me sow up pots millions of times and I'll just do it one more time for you really really quickly. You take your piece of paper you fold it in half so that your seeds all roll down to the middle and then you gently tap the paper and disperse the seeds all over the soil. As I said they're very rolly they like to roll everywhere. And that's it. Super easy. Now that sowing these guys up is over and I gave you some of the basic care I'm now going to talk to you about some of their specific requirements which is what does make them quite difficult to actually grow. And I'll also talk to you as to why they are the world's fastest carnivorous plant. Firstly these guys as I said are native to Australia. But what makes them very difficult to actually look after is that they require very cold nighttime temperatures. I'm talking between two to eight degrees celsius at night. And they need cool days also around 20 degrees celsius if I'm not wrong. Which means that they are winter growers. They are like the tuberous sundews. Now I don't know much about these guys honestly I haven't found much research on them. So we will learn about them together and let's just hope for the best. Let's hope that they sprout and yeah we will take it as it comes. I've seen pictures of them they do look like tuberous drossera but they aren't tuberous as I've said. And many people do struggle to grow them so if you want to actually join me on the adventure of growing these guys make sure you subscribe to the channel. And also guys please bear in mind it takes a long time a long time for carnivorous plants to grow. The reason why I haven't done a lot of update videos yet I'm going to be doing them now over the coming months is because it takes a long time for these plants to grow. It's been about a year since I started growing here in Australia and only now are the plants at a reasonable size for me to actually do an update video that has substantial content in it. So let me now explain to you why these guys are actually the world's fastest moving carnivorous plant. So I've now moved on to the floor to explain this to you guys. Now these plants drossera glanduligera have something called snap tentacles. What that means is that they have their tentacles that stick out which snap right snap tentacles. And the way that they do this is actually in my opinion kind of similar to the venus fly trap. Let me explain When a venus fly trap gets activated or the trap is triggered their leaves their lobes of the trap close really quickly. And the way that they do this is that the outer walls of the venus fly trap actually grows and expands which causes it the outside of the trap to grow in on itself. So I hope that makes sense. Now with the snap trap of the drossera glanduligera it is kind of similar. And I'll get back to why it's similar to the venus fly trap now but let's just go back to when we were younger. Let's say it's middle school you're on the playground some kid comes up to you and hits you on the on the wrist with one of those band things that goes from straight to round just like instantly. And you're confused how the hell does this thing work right. Well not many kids may have looked at it but when I first saw and I looked at it and I wondered to myself how the hell does this thing actually work. And the way that it works is that it's as you know it's a piece of metal that's been rolled so it's kind of like that. I have no props guys you need to remember I live in a country and I moved here with two suitcases of clothes so I have nothing I can't show you but they have a piece of metal like this. And what happens when you put a pressure on this side of the piece of metal it causes the rest of the metal to expand and then the whole tube or sleeve of metal expands and folds in on itself and it causes the whole metal to go from straight to round. And that's how those bangles work. And it's the same principle essentially that drosser glandular has. The long traps are similar to that metal piece of sleeve and when that trap gets touched and activated like the venus flytrap there are some signals that are sent to the areas of the tentacles causes them to grow and then because they have that tension in them just like the little bangle thing they grow like the force of it hitting you on the wrist and then the rest of that built-up tension causes it to snap closed. And as far as I know as far as my own intuition of it that's how they work. But the cool thing is when these guys grow up we can actually zoom in on them and slow-mo them down and watch them close up on some food that we feed them. So if you're interested in that make sure you subscribe to watch how they grow. I'm very excited for them so once again thank you Richard Davian for everything that you do to help this channel grow. I really do appreciate it. Now let's go take them outside and you guys can have a quick preview of how the plants are looking right now. Most of the plants are actually going dormant now at the drosser bonnets at the back. This is our drossera, what's the name, filiformis. Lots of plants at the back. Lots of things I want to update you guys on. Look how big our chewy pine is now guys. Some venus flytraps down here. One of our viewers said that venus flytraps growing in small pots will all die. Man I'm so upset that all my venus flytraps have died. They're actually looking so terrible now even though they're dormant. They're all dead. And there's our regi, some cobra lilies, some of these South African cold growers. Drossera capensis albino or alba. Been shouted at about calling them albino before as well but anyway I will be updating you guys on them all in the next coming months so make sure you stick around. I'll see you guys in the next episode.