I recently contacted Rick Walker about joining the CP e-mail discussion
group and in the first mailing it requested a rundown of a new member's
interests.
I started with CP about 15 years ago and amassed a considerable collection
prior to college (the collection is all gone now). My main interests were in
Drosera and their Genetics. I spent a lot of time hybridizing Drosera and
working out the groups of species that would interbreed. My frustration came
from realizing that the exotic varieties I was interested in hybridizing would
not cross. After the loss of collection in college and constant moving around
I have not been able to grow CP-- until now. I have recently joined the
faculty as assistant professor in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology at
Stanford University were I use recombinant DNA techniques to study regulation
of genes controlling immune system functions. I've always wanted to apply
succh techniques to my old hobby.
All that as a way of saying that I have recently acquired a small starting
collection of Drosera and hope to use some genetic engineering tricks I've
learned over the years to "break" the species barrier in Drosera. The
techniques are likely applicable to other genera of CP.
Questions:
1) What does anyone know about Drosera species that have been
hybridized to date? I'm interested in compiling a list of those which are
known to hybridize to set off hybridizing subgroups.
2) What does anyone know about Drosera tissue culture techniques? I
tried out some TC on CP in college and had reasonable luck getting callus
growth and regeneration of whole plants with binata and capensis. I'd like to
get an idea of what has happened in the 13 years since then.
3) Has anyone infected Drosera with Agrobacterium plasmids?
4) Does anyone have any references or has themselves regenerated
Drosera protoplasts to callus or plants?
Happy to be aboard-- hope refinding my old hobby isn't as distracting
as in my teens....
Garry P. Nolan, Ph.D.