CPs (not) on TV
Fernando Rivadavia Lopes (ferndriv@usp.br)
Mon, 21 Aug 1995 09:50:59 -0500 (CDT)
This weekend I saw a program on the discovery channel on
Mt.Neblina, home of H.tatei var.neblinae, D.meristocaulis, and many
others. The expedition was composed of 2 or 3 Japanese guys and one
westerner (hearing his accent when speaking English, I believe he was a
portuguese/italian/or spanish native speaker). It showed all their boring
progress and hardships on the way to the mountain and how they were lucky
enough to get the Venezuelan army to helicopter them most of the way up
the mountain.
Finally up there, the narrator begins talking about the weird
plants and animals up there and I begin drooling, imagining the CPs they
were gonna show. I've never seen a film on Mt.Neblina and have only seen
pictures of H.tatei var.neblinae. But I was dying to see the supposedly
almost-bushy D.meristocaulis, sometimes considered THE most primitive
species in the genus since it only has 3 simple styles in each flower.
They began showing a few rather uninteresting orchids and then,
to my total surprise and revolt, the program simply ENDED!! They didn't
show if the guys actually reached the top, nor how they left, and you
could say they didn't show any images of the mountains itsef!! The few
they did were useless since it was really foggy! I couldn't believe the
guys had gone all the way there to make such a sh--ty program!! What a
waste! I mean if it was Mt.Roraima, it wouldn't be so bad. We've all seen
one program or another on this mountain and its CPs. But Mt.Neblina is
comparatively so much more inaccessible and its vegetation relatively so
unknown! Anyone know who those idiots were? My only hope is that there's
a continuation to this program, but they didn't make it seem so.
Irately,
Fernando Rivadavia
Sao Paulo, Brazil