CPs in Brazil - a fantastic trip (part 6)
Fernando Rivadavia Lopes (ferndriv@usp.br)
Thu, 14 Mar 1996 10:55:13 -0300 (GRNLNDST)
Joe and I left the Serra do Cipo and drove several hundred km SE
to the city of Arraial do Cabo, on the coast of the state of Rio de
Janeiro, where we wanted to search for D.intermedia. For those of you who
don't know, there's a disjunct population of D.intermedia on the coast of
Brazil (from the state of Bahia to the state of R.de Janeiro), the
closest known D.intermdia site being on Mt.Roraima, over 3000km NW.
In fact, while in Europe I saw that the TYPE herbarium of
D.capillaris var.brasiliensis is in fact D.intermedia! I got a bit mixed
up after seeing this collection and was wondering how Saint Hilaire
(who in my opinion, was the person who best understood Brazilian
Drosera up to date) could've made such a stupid mistake, but then I
noticed my error, that it was in fact Diels who had published
var.brasiliensis. Yes, the same 'genius' who wrote the only Drosera
monograph to date committed this horrible mistake, as well as the
murderous synonymizations of many Brazilian Drosera described by Saint
Hilaire, which I hope to correct over the years to come.
Anyways, on the way to Arraial do Cabo, we took a road which
crossed the Serra dos Orgaos National Park in the state of Rio. I'd been
to these mountains a few years before, on a fruitless 4-day hike across
the mountains in search of U.nelumbifolia. Well, I had found D.villosa,
U.pubescens, U.reniformis, and had seen U.geminiloba for the first (and
only) time in the wild, unfortunately without flowers.
I had heard that there were D.villosa on this road. In fact, most
of the D.villosa cultivated around the world today supposedly come from
this road. I heard that seeds and plants of D.villosa were first
collected on this road and exported in the 70's by Reginaldo Britto, an
ex-CPer who lives in Rio. While in Europe I saw these D.villosa in
cultibation and noticed that they were quite different from what I knew
as D.villosa, so I was anxious to see them in the wild.
We began driving up the long road and stopping by every wet rock
on the roadside, but to our frustration found nothing. Then, almost at
the top at +_1350m, we found wet rocks covered with what seemed to be
U.geminiloba! 2 flower scapes, but no flowers. At the topmost part of the
road, we found what was surely U.geminiloba, but no sign of flower
scapes.
The rest of the way was pure descent, and seeing how bad it had
been one side of the mountains, we weren't too optimistic about this
other side. Then to our surprise, at 1150m we came upon a long rock wall
dripping with water and overflowing with U.geminiloba and U.nephrophylla
in flower!!!! I finally saw the flowers of U.geminiloba! It was a
lilac-blue color with a yellow blotch at the base of the lower lip, maybe
around 2-3cm in height. Different from what Taylor shows in his
monograph, there were 2 long lower lobes which resembled the ears of a
rabbit, turned upsidedown. Very beautiful!! Too bad we found no fruit,
but we should be able to cultivate and multiply it to offer it for trade
in the near future.
The U.nephrophylla were, again, purple flowered. Thus I've come
to the conclusion that white must be the exception, and not purple. The
leaves were very tiny at this site and the yellow on the ridges of the
lower lobe was much more pronounced than the ones we found at the
Caparao (right in the beginning of this never-ending-trip!).
Also on this rocky wall we found deep purple-blue U.tricolor in
Sphagnum. Surprisingly, the part of the flower scapes which were in the
Sphagnum, as well as the stolons, were covered with a thick layer
of transparent gelatin-like mucilage! I'd only ever seen this on
U.pubescens, G.aurea, and G.pygmaea, but in these species it was more
like a liquid. To finish off this site, we found U.reniformis with huge
leaves, similar to the ones I'm holdingoin that CPN back cover from
last(?) year. Only these were thick, healthy, in full sunlight, and not
thin and in the shade as those in CPN.
Continuing down the road, we saw a smooth cliff at around 1100m
and decided to stop to search the bromeliads for U.nelumbifolia. Who
knows, maybe our luck would hold up! It was a dangerous cliff and we had
trouble reaching any bromeliads, but right at the bottom I found one
which had fallen off the cliff and sure enough inside it was
U.nelumbifolia!!! No matter how enthusiastic we were, we weren't that
crazy nor blind, and thus couldn't reach part of the cliff above where we
could see U.nelumbifolia leaves sticking up among the bromeliad
rosettes! It was just too dangerous. Joe did end up taking a bad spill,
but luckily it was down at the bottom, just when he thought he'd made it
safely back down!! 8*)
Luckily, there was another bromeliad species growing to one side
of the cliff base, which we were able to reach and which also contained
U.nelumbifolia. There were no flowers, but still it was great to see this
Utric again. It's incredible to think that in such a short stretch we
found U.nelumbifolia, U.reniformis, U.geminiloba, and U.nephrophylla, 4
of the 5 species in section Iperua! The only one remaining was
U.humboldtii, which unfortunately only grows aroundm 4000km further
north!
Still high with our finds, only a bit further down the road we
spotted the red of Drosera on another rocky wall dripping with water at
1050m! It was D.villosa, the strange form I was searching for! The plants
were fantastically beautiful!! Deep red-purple, semi-erect rosettes up to
12cm in diameter! The leaves are curiously VERY hairy on the undersides,
and I know from the pictures I saw in Europe that the flower scapes are
also very hairy. The leaves are unique in that the petioles are very
narrow and the lamina wider. Wonderful plants!!
Having exausted our ideas of plants to pray for, we drove on,
without stopping any more. We were late, and we were more than satisfied!
Later that night we arrived at Arraial do Cabo, on the steaming coast of
Rio de Janeiro state. Man was it HOT!!!
To be continued......
Fernando Rivadavia
Sao Paulo, Brazil