Re: New CP-magazine (monthly)

Barry Meyers-Rice (barry@as.arizona.edu)
Thu, 11 Feb 93 08:15:06 MST

Hey Y'all:

I have an All Points Bulletin on a fellow named David Crump---he called
me the other night but I can't find his address. Anyone out there have it?
I believe he was from S. Carolina....

>I just got my copy of Gordon Cheer's new book "A Guide to Carnivorous
>Plants of the World". It is definitely worth buying, but is more of a

Rick, I too just got my copy of the book. I was highly pleased with it,
partly because Cheers's first book was so, well, dreadful. Unlike his
first book, this is not filled with spelling errors (like _S.oreophylla_)
and other dribble. There were a few mistakes in it that caught my eye,
but I agree with Don Schnell that if you can't get Slack's 2nd book this
is the best general book around. The monthly calendar of things to do
is useful for the beginner so he or she would know when to repot etc.,
but the danger with this is of course different plants are often on
different schedules---some of my _Sarracenia_ lead others in growth by a
month or more---regardless of what a book might say!

I found the pictures to be, in general, glorious and as good as the best
I've seen anywhere. Consistently good focus under greenhouse macro and
in the field.

His included CP species list is quite vestigial compared to Jan's list,
especially since it doesn't have all the synonyms of the latter list.

The low point of the book, I think, are the pages spent on trying to
reconstruct the evolution of CPs, based on trapping characteristics.
He has a flow chart showing monocots evolving into dicots, and Utrics
evolving from Aldrovanda, and other bits of nonsense.

But the photos, especially pages upon pages of Nepenthes pitchers in the
wild, really make this worth it!

BAMR