Myrmecodia platytyrea Seedlings

[Bern]

Here's a pair of seedling ant plants I recently acquired. They are the "Mossman" form of Myrmecodia platytyrea native to Queensland, Australia.  I'll be repotting them shortly in individual pots in Orchiata orchid bark. These plants develop an impressive caudex if well grown.

[David Pilling]

"
In tropical forests, some plants known as ant-plants, or myrmecophytes, are engaged with ants in tight, often obligatory relationships. These plants have specialised hollow structures, called domatia, to host ant colonies.
"

[Bern]

I'm a member of the Forum for Epiphytic Myrmecophytes, and although this Forum is not active anymore, there is a wealth of information about these plants on the site. 

Here's a link to a post about the "Mossman" form of Myrmecodia platytyrea that shows some larger plants in cultivation.

https://myrmecodia.invisionzone.com/topic/683-variation-in-m-platytyrea-subantoinii-southern-form/

And here's a link showing what another species of Myrmecodia looks like growing in habitat.

https://myrmecodia.invisionzone.com/topic/96-myrmecodia-tuberosa-papuana-cape-york-peninsula-australia/

And here's the link to the Forum's homepage.

https://myrmecodia.invisionzone.com/

Enjoy!

[David Pilling]

I had a look at Forum for Epiphytic Myrmecophytes, seems to be under new management. Proves there is never a shortage of new interesting plants.

I'd be worried that ants might take up living in then - maybe has to be a specific type of ant.

[Bern]

I'd be worried that ants might take up living in then - maybe has to be a specific type of ant.

I repotted one of my larger Myrmecodia beccarii yesterday and I noticed a few ants on the caudex later in the evening. Occasionally, I will see ants on my plant shelves, but I could never find where they were nesting, and the ant plants didn't seem to be the source.  Anyway, when I have ants on my plant shelves I use a few drops of Terro ant bait on a small piece of plastic or aluminum foil. Amazingly, the ants pour out of wherever they are hiding to feed on the solution, which contains sugar and borax; the borax is fatal to them. Within about 2 days, the ants are gone until they mysteriously reappear months later, and then the Terro get reapplied.  I now have some Terro drops on plastic sitting on top of the potting mix of my larger ant plants to see what happens.

But, not to worry, any decent systemic insecticide drench with imidacloprid should easily take care of an ant infestation in your myrmecophytes.

[David Pilling]

There are lots of plants that are attractive to ants - deliberately - seeds have sweet sticky treats attached to encourage the ants to spread them.

[Bern]

Epiphytic Myrmecophytes: Bizarre Wonder of Nature 2022, by Derrick John Rowe

The late Derrick John Rowe from New Zealand published an extensive eBook on epiphytic myrmecophytes and other non-epiphytic plant genera with close ant associated ecology. This book is a treasure of scientific and natural history of the known ant plants.  It contains extensive color photographs and is documented to the hilt with technical references.  It was written in Microsoft Word and totals almost 1100 pages on my computer.

Derrick made this eBook available for free on the Forum for Epiphytic Myrmecophytes.  Derrick's eBook is available to anyone who is interested in it, not just Forum members.  Since I do not enjoy reading books on my computer, I purchased an inexpensive 10 inch Hyundai HyTab Tablet on eBay, installed a free Word App for Android from Microsoft, and downloaded the eBook to the tablet. I can now enjoy reading this eBook in the evenings without having to sit at my computer.

The latest working link from the Myrmecophyte Forum for this book is below.  It is on Google Drive.  I checked it out today and I was able to download the zipped file without problems.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BISi7muZ8PUV705xImAH_0Pi-yT3va0i?fbclid=IwAR2IOsjxZPeGANb84qeWW3HgIA3rS2N9GpDUEPOIUur3RYEc9R13yAM4wm0

This is an outstanding, free publication available for anyone who is interested in this subject.  Derrick's work is the culmination of a lifetime of study about these plants.  Enjoy!

[David Pilling]

Bern - that book is a very good effort.

Tip, the link above takes you to a folder. If you just download it, Google will mess about zipping it and you'll end up with 1.2GB of duplicated material. Instead double click the folder and seek out the 200MB combined chapters PDF file:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mDG0x82S941a577PGjWgVMTepA8_haV9/view?usp=drive_link

[Bern]

Tip, the link above takes you to a folder. If you just download it, Google will mess about zipping it and you'll end up with 1.2GB of duplicated material. Instead double click the folder and seek out the 200MB combined chapters PDF file:

Thanks David.  Good to know.  I went about it with the zipped file. It took a bit of effort.  But, I was successful.  But anyone else can do it a bit easier with the method you describe.

I also edited my comments about this eBook.  Derrick made his eBook available to anyone who is interested in it; it is not solely for Myrmecophyte Forum members.  It is an impressive work and worthy of appreciation and gratitude.