Hungry Plants

Barry Meyers-Rice (barry@as.arizona.edu)
Thu, 6 Jan 94 11:25:09 MST

In the most recent CPN (22:4) is an article on p86 re: _Heliamphora_.
There is some interesting information regarding the nature of the
sandy Tepui soil, temperature extremes etc for the plants in the wild.
The text is pretty short, but the author present a key and checklist of
features for the species.

While the article is nice, there is this photo that really gets me
irritated. Why must people go to these places and then have a picture
taken of them holding a rare plant they tore out of the ground? Yep,
there's the author with a nice _H.ionasii_, his trophy kill for the
safari. Why couldn't he have been kneeling down by some lovely plants
still growing? Commune vs. conquest. Hmmph!

Jan, this guy lists the following taxa
_H.nutans_
_H.minor_
_H.minor f. laevis_
_H.ionasii_
_H.heterodoxa var. heterodoxa_
_H.heterodoxa var. heterodoxa f. glabella_
_H.heterodoxa var. exappendiculata_
_H.heterodoxa var. exappendiculata f. glabella_
_H.tatei var. tatei_
_H.tatei var. tatei f. macdonaldae_
_H.tatei var. tatei f. tyleri_
_H.tatei var. neblinae_
_H.tatei var. neblinae f. parva_

Being something of a lumper in philosophy, I have a certain distaste
for all these names. Are the various forms and varieties even published?

Barry