Re: Nepenthes

Barry Meyers-Rice (barry@as.arizona.edu)
Wed, 3 Mar 93 11:16:41 MST

Oh boy oh boy, what a trip Bridgett and I have planned for this
summer. Around the last week of May we are going to jump in our
car and drive across 1500 km of Texas wasteland. From Dallas/Ft. Worth
we are going to veer south to spend the night in New Orleans. From
there we will drive leisurely and spend a day or so in the Mobile
area looking for various Pings, Sarrs, Drosera, and Utrics. We will
continue along the coast all the up to Charleston S.C., and spend a
week there with friends while continuing plant explorations. We will
pass through the ranges of all the Southeastern CP except _rubra jonesii_,
_oreophila_, and perhaps a _Utric_ or two.

If you have any verified plant locations (places you've travelled to
yourself) in this area I'd be most interested to know about them. I
am not going to be collecting plants for myself or others, so no requests
please. I am really excited about looking for big stands of _S.leucs_
in the Mobile Bay area. I have some information on locations in the
S. Carolina area, and of course we're going to be travelling up to
N.C. to look for _Dionaea_.

Also on this matter: I am very experienced at hiking in the desert, and so
know about rattlesnakes, gila monsters, various spiders, scorpions, cacti,
bears etc. But the South East U.S. is brand new to me. It is funny that while
everything in Arizona has spines, venom, or pincers, when I get into an
Arizona lake or bog the worst things I have to worry about are treacherous
false lake-bottoms and salamanders. Nothing nasty lives in the wetlands.
But I felt a little _frisson_ when I saw a photo in a Nature Conservancy
magazine of some Southeastern U.S. rattlesnake nestled in a moist bed
of live _Sphagnum._ Any words to the naive about things to avoid in
the South East? Reptiles? Insects? Klansmen?

Bridgett suggested we spend most of the nights camping out, and not in
inexpensive hotels. I reminded her of stories of ticks, chiggers, biting
flies, and mosquitoes that THIRST FOR HUMAN BLOOD.

BAMR