OK. For those who knew or cared, I'm now back from Cuba and Venezuela.
Depending on the success rate with photos, I may publish the story in
ICPS, so even more people can "benefit" from my experience. Danger is
that I bore people even more than usual by publishing here AND in ICPS.
(Any comments from the ICPS editorial team?)
For now, the sole purpose of this mail was to announce that I'm back so
that people who missed my stunning wit could mail me again with some hope of a
reply (but then again, if you know me that well you know there's little hope
of a reply in the first even when I'm not on holiday!).
I will write up a trip report and send it as a global mail (my next
global mail) hopefully this week, if not then early next week. It ill
contain reports on each species found or site location visited, growing
conditions and deductions relevant to cultivation, info which I think
might point to a previously unrecorded form of one species. There may
be some additional hints or notes. I'll also predict which plants may
be or will be expected to be introduced into cultivation and how this
will be done.
Sorry if you would rather I didn't, but I'll also give my views on Cuba and
Venezuela, possibly some other info for would be travellers.
As a teaser, some will know that the goal was to find as many as
possible of the 5 endemic Pinguiculas in Cuba, the priority being to
locate the very rare and almost never seen Pinguicula jackii. Along
with finding plants, there was a wish to learn as much as possible of
these species such as to make cultivation feasible and of course a hope
of collecting seed to introduce plants into cultivation. Oh yes, I
promised a tease. So I'll let you know that against all the odds, I
found P. jackii.
Finally, and by way of a request, if anyone knows of any CP'ers from
Illinois, (probably a University but not necessarily), I'd appreciate
contact with them.
Regards from a well cooked Paul
(Red hair and caribbean sun are a dangerous mix!)