Latest ICPS News

Kernersville, North Carolina – May 16–17, 2026

The Paul J. Ciener Botanical Garden (PJCBG), located in Kernersville, North Carolina, is thrilled to host the Carnivorous & Exotic Plant Symposium & Expo in partnership with the International Carnivorous Plant Society (ICPS). Funding and support for this exciting new event are being generously provided by the Guilford County Horticultural Society and the Paul J. Ciener Botanical Garden Foundation.

This two-day symposium and expo will be held May 16–17, 2026, with activities centered at the Kernersville Community Recreation & Event Center. Opened in January 2025, this $18.3 million facility offers spacious presentation halls and a vibrant expo floor—an ideal setting for two full days of learning, networking, and celebrating plants with fellow enthusiasts.

In addition to the main event, the Paul J. Ciener Botanical Garden will host off-site Master Gardener tours and special exhibits, extending the symposium’s educational and cultural reach across Kernersville.

Read more for details...

The ICPS is offering Virtual Events on Zoom.

How do Nepenthes pitcher plants cope with changing weather conditions?    
Jan 27, 2026 12:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)    
Register in advance for this meeting. 

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Nepenthes pitcher plants are usually half-filled with a fluid that traps and digests insects. I will discuss how weather conditions such as rainfall and drought affect the volume and composition of this fluid and how the pitcher itself responds to any resultant changes caused by the weather, by secreting or removing fluid as necessary. I will also show how the volume of the fluid found within a pitcher affects the number of insects it is able to capture, and hence why it is so important for the pitchers to regulate their fluid levels.

Charlotte Andrew is a PhD student in the Insect Biomechanics Group, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge. Her research explores the fascinating fluids used by carnivorous plants to capture insects, with a focus on how the unique properties of these fluids make them highly effective traps and how the plants maintain their functionality under varying environmental conditions. She primarily studies Nepenthes and Drosera species and has conducted extensive fieldwork in Brunei, Borneo, investigating the fluids of six different Nepenthes species in their natural habitats.

Longevity of carnivorous plants seeds: can we store them alive for decades? 
Jan 29, 2026 11:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada) 
Register in advance for this meeting. 

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

In this webinar, Dani Ballesteros talks about the importance of storing seeds under optimal conditions to expand their viability over time (i.e., longevity). He introduces the particular case of seeds of carnivorous plants, for which seed longevity has sometimes been defined as “ephemeral.” During the talk, Dani Ballesteros presents recent scientific data on the long-term storage of seeds from 13 different carnivorous plant species under various storage conditions. He then discusses the potential short (or long) lifespan of these seeds and what this means for seed bank managers or carnivorous plant enthusiasts storing seeds at home.

Dani Ballesteros is a professor of botany at the University of Valencia (Spain). His research focuses on the fundamental basis (physiology, biophysics) governing the long-term conservation of plant genetic resources, including seeds, pollen, embryos, and other tissues. He gained most of his experience working over 15 years with some of the most influential researchers in this field in the USA, South Africa, the UK, Italy, and Spain. Dani Ballesteros applies this knowledge to improve the ex situ conservation of wild and threatened species while training the next generation of plant conservation biologists.

Non-members of the ICPS are welcome.

The Virtual Events are hosted by ICPS Education Director, Kenny Coogan.

Our webinars will be recorded. They will be posted on the ICPS's social media (FB + YouTube) accounts about a week after the events.

The Carnivorous Plant Newsletter (CPN) is the official publication of the International Carnivorous Plant Society. CPN is published in March, June, September, and December.

Features of CPN include horticultural articles, research papers, field trip reports, conservation news, book and literature reviews, communications from members, cultivar and species descriptions, and meeting announcements.

Contents of Volume 54 Number 4, December 2025

• A preview of the ICPS Conference 2026 — Felix Bokhorst
• Carnivorous & Exotic Plant Symposium & Expo Kernersville, North Carolina – May 16–17, 2026 — Ernie Pages
• Observations of subterranean pitchers in cultivated Nepenthes rhombicaulis — Michal R. Golos and Paul Leach
• Adaptive strategies of Nepenthes: A review — B. Wyatt Block
• New cultivars — Marcel van den Broek and Chris Rawlings and Yuri Sarzi and Rob Emberson and Flavio Boschi and Danilo Cazzaniga and Valerio Guidolin and Julian Müller and José Antonio Negrete Moreno and Alexander Fisch
• Cultivar names registered in 2024 — Jan Schlauer

View the Contents of All CPN Issues

The Carnivorous Plant Newsletter (CPN) is the official publication of the International Carnivorous Plant Society. CPN is published in March, June, September, and December.

Features of CPN include horticultural articles, research papers, field trip reports, conservation news, book and literature reviews, communications from members, cultivar and species descriptions, and meeting announcements.

Contents of Volume 54 Number 3, September 2025

• Erratum — Bob Ziemer
• ICPS Conference 2026: no plant is an island — Felix Bokhorst
• World Carnivorous Plant Day photo contest 2025 — Kenny Coogan
• New cultivars — Adrian Fawcett and Peter Hu and Yan-Min Ma and Maciej Stelmach
• Discovering the Lost World — François Sockhom Mey

View the Contents of All CPN Issues

The Carnivorous Plant Newsletter (CPN) is the official publication of the International Carnivorous Plant Society. CPN is published in March, June, September, and December.

Features of CPN include horticultural articles, research papers, field trip reports, conservation news, book and literature reviews, communications from members, cultivar and species descriptions, and meeting announcements.

Contents of Volume 54 Number 2, June 2025

• Carnivores in the Classroom grants 2025 — Kenny Coogan
• Peter D'Amato — Damon Collingsworth
• Volcanic sundews: an ecologically unique population of round-leaved sundews (Drosera rotundifolia) growing on an active volcano in Hokkaido, Japan — Ken Kwak
• Expanding North Alabama's bogs 2024 — Patrick Thompson
• Possible Pinguicula laueana hybrid — Arthur Yin
• Pinguicula medusina as a host plant — Arthur Yin
• Carnivores in the Classroom grants — 2024 teacher reports — Kenny Coogan
• New cultivars — Pietro Falchi and Damon Collingsworth and Mustafid Rasyiid and Yonatan Kurniawan Kris Ananto and Ahmad Ariyan

View the Contents of All CPN Issues

The Carnivorous Plant Newsletter (CPN) is the official publication of the International Carnivorous Plant Society. CPN is published in March, June, September, and December.

Features of CPN include horticultural articles, research papers, field trip reports, conservation news, book and literature reviews, communications from members, cultivar and species descriptions, and meeting announcements.

Contents of Volume 54 Number 1, March 2025

• Sarracenia oreophila conservation project update — Carson Trexler
• Erratum: An updated nomenclatural conspectus of infrageneric names in Pinguicula — John Brittnacher
• An intimate view of the leaf surface of Pinguicula warijia — Martín Mata-Rosas and Greta Rosas-Saito and Sofía Gámez-Landaverde
• Are traps of Utricularia multifida and U. westonii active and do they create negative pressure? — Lubomír Adamec and Simon Poppinga
• An account of Drosera section Arcturia — Richard Nunn
• A short visit to find carnivorous plants in Northern Taiwan — Aaron Liu
• New cultivars — Y. Chen and Evan Wang and Emmy Wang and Christian Duran Gonzalez and Arthur Sanguet

View the Contents of All CPN Issues