Has anyone ordered from any of the following places?
Acid-Wetland Flora
Nature et Paysages
Alain Christophe
Maries Orchids & CP
Heldon Nurseries
Hinode-Kadan Nursery
Sarracenia Nurseries
Thysanotus-Seed-Mailorder
South West Seeds
Roy Young
Cyril G. Brown
Renate Parsley
Milingimbi Nursery
Glasshouse Works
Places I've ordered from or know:
Peter Pauls Nurseries----terribly mislabelled plants, lousy service, a lot
----of field collected garbage
Chuck Powell-----never had any problems the few times I ordered from him.
Hungry Plants---Good service. Will do some trades.
Orgel's Orchids---Uniformly good service
Lee's Botanical Gardens---Same as Orgel's except once he sent me a pretty
---damned pathetic order. I was peaved. Still am.
Allen Lowrie---My Australian connection for well identified plants.
Southwest Carnivores---Gordon gets my obviously biased recommendation.
Mellinger's Inc---good source for supplies.
Oversights:
Fred Howell
3 Normandy Avenue
Para Hills, 5098
Southern Australia
******************* A collection of uniquely misidentified plants. No, really
Fred seems to be a fine sort. If I recall, he has a selection of Drosera,
Utricularia, Nepenthes, Pings, usual stuff mostly.
Also, there was another place I recall named Cedar Ridge. Never ordered from
them and don't know if they're still around.
> I just got an update from Peter Pauls. They have a limited
> number of the following: D. anglica*, D. linearis** (shipped in
> May), P. esseriana X moranensis***, P. esseriana***, P. caerula****, plus
> other, fairly common, stuff. Prices are high, and there are
> no guarantees on the items
* Probably a confused mix of intermedia and capillaris
** Sounds like they've gone on a collecting expedition to Michigan.
*** Good god, it could be any of the Mexican Pings or hybrids
**** or maybe it's lutea, planifolia, primuliflora, or ionanatha. Whatever
survived the road trip back from Florida in the trunk of the chevy.
One symptom of unsuccessful observing for a multiple day observing run is
I may get a little more crass than is usual for even me! So from my
comments above you may recognize a certain distaste I have for
Peter Pauls. It may have something to do with ordering P. lutea and
planifolia and getting misidentified caerulea (mistaking a *caerulea* for
a *planifolia*!), growing S. oreophila seeds to maturity and getting
leucophylla hybrids instead, and never answering my letters about these
problems.
> I have a new flyer from Allen Lowrie at home, but haven't looked
> at it yet.
I checked it out. Some of the usual tubers and seeds. I may see if I can
find anyone who may be up for getting some D. petiolaris complex plants
from him. His usual deal is he sells a lot of four plants (all the same
species) for $28 Australian (about $22 USA). While this is expensive on a
per person basis, it's not too bad if two or more people split the bill and
plants. Anyone interested? I'm thinking about going in on getting anything
other than D. petiolaris `Kununurra' or a few others I can't recall right
now. Maybe get a lanata or try falconeri again. Warning: These plants are not
easy!
I'm really pleased with this issue of CPN. Gordon has a well written,
straightforward article about cultivating D. petiolaris `Kununurra,'
my only complaint about it is while he says leaf cuttings are very
easy none of mine have been successful. I wonder what I'm doing wrong.
Guess I'll try again.
I like the Brazil article, and a note in which Don Schnell essentially
slaps Allen Lowrie's and N. Marchant's hands for not describing many
of the species in Lowrie's books. But my favourite part of the issue
is the excellent article about the rarely described P. villosa in the
Yukon. Everything you'd want is here: locations, photographs, maps,
meteorological data, cultivation hints, and even *very* shiny Canadian
pennies! There's also a nice article following it about P. vulgaris.
As a sad counterpoint, I noticed that about 1/3 of the articles in the
literature review contain accounts of habitat destruction and field
collecting.
But then there's this article by J.D. Williams entitled, Plant vs. Animus.
This article is, well, loopy! I've read it twice now and still can't
figure out just what the hell the author is trying to say. The best I
can make out of it is that non-Homo sapiens species have a different
reality because they have different sorts of sensory input. Then this
leads into the idea that maybe an animal walking through grass might mistake
the situation to be one in which it is standing still and the ground and
plants are moving underfoot. Goofy! The author obviously spends too much
time by himself. My theory is he got in an automobile accident---he fell
asleep at the wheel and drove off the road. Now he's trying to figure out
how to convince the judge not to give him a ticket---his defense being it
was the *road's* fault it drove out from underneath him. In fact, he was
just sitting in his stationary car!
Uh huh.
BAMR