Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 12:18:08 +0000 From: Bill Tribe <wrt20@cam.ac.uk> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg282$foo@default> Subject: Heliamphora sp.
Ivan,
In reply to your question, there are some aspects of your message which
are seemingly incorrect, though to be fair this area is a confused one and
I've probably misunderstood!
> Last year I aquired about 100 wild collected seed of Heliamphora
>which was collected by a group of CP nuts who climbed Mount Neblina. The
>seed was a mix of both H. neblina and tatei. I sowed these all together
H. neblina does not exist - this is one of those picky taxonomic points I
know, but as of the last strict publication that I'm aware of, it was
reclassified as a var. of H. tatei - i.e. H. tatei var. neblinae. Now, this
is still a contentious point - H. tatei var. tatei (which only exists on
mountains further much further north, close to the Mt. Duida complex, and
not near Mt. Neblina itself) seems to be a quite distinct plant; however,
some would say it is correct to call the two a variety, others argue that
its geographical separation means they should be classified as subspecies,
still others say they are distinct species. Many authors also ignore this,
which is annoying, and simply refer to the southern plants as H. neblinae.
However, whichever way you want to look at it, it isn't the case that BOTH
H. tatei and H. neblinae were collected from Neblina in the recent expedition.
The true position is itself very confusing. The adventurers who went off to
Neblina report that the H. tatei var. neblinae populations on the mountain
were extremely variable; there was not an obvious "type" specimen amongst
them. If you go to Andreas Wistubas website you can get an idea of this, he
has published a few of his photos and you'll soon get the idea. In
addition, they also found what looks like a new species, which they call H.
sp. Neblinae - maybe this is the one you're referring to above when you say
that you have "both" types of seed? (hence my statement above about
misunderstandings!). This was quite different to the other plants on
Neblina, and also the northern H. tatei variety.
As far as identifying the plant goes, this may take a while, and may
have to wait until the numerous culture lines already started from the
collected seeds find their way into collections. The issue of Heliamphora
taxonomy is itself a very confused one, due in no small part to the
isolation of the tepuis in Venezuela, and the very few people that have
explored them. This is as true of the eastern species (from the Roraima-Ilu
range) as it is of the new Western Neblina plants!
Bill Tribe
Cambridge UK.
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