I have just spent the previous week in Nikko, one of the most
famous tourist spots in Japan, a city with lots of temples, waterfalls,
lakes, and surrounded by forest-covered mountains. I spent a few days
hiking mostly inside the beautiful Nikko National Park, together with a
group of biology students from Tokyo University, as well as my supervisor
here in Japan, who is their taxonomy professor.
The only 3 known sites in the world where you can find the
beautiful _Pinguicula ramosa_ are on mountains in the Nikko area. This is
the only _Ping_ which may have flower scapes with more than one flower (I
believe up to 3). Supposedly, one of these 3 sites is very large, while
the other 2 are small. Also in this region you can find _Drosera
rotundifolia_ and _Pinguicula macroceras_. Last winter and spring were
exceptionally cold here in Japan, as I was told. Because of this, the
flowering periods of these CPs, as well as other plants, were delayed and
I was lucky enough to see all 3 species in flower!!!!!
On the first day at Nikko we went for a walk in wetlands where
_D.rotundifolia_ grew. This was the first time I saw this widespread
species (most likely already boring to all of you who live in the
Northern Hemisphere) in the wild. It was never very abundant in any
one spot, but was rather common in a few parts of the trail. The rosettes
were often hidden among other plants and with only a few leaves per plant.
The rosettes were maybe up to 6 or 7cm in diameter and the leaves were
sometimes reddish or completely red.
On another day I was guided by a biologist from the Nikko Botanic
Garden to the _P.ramosa_ site on Mt.Nantai, one of the small sites. To my
surprise the site was by no means small and there were thousands and
thousands of plants spread along a few hundred meters at the bottom side
of a rocky cliff!! They were half shaded and the soil they grew in was a
crumbly brick-red rock, which Juerg Steiger had told me previously was a
vulcanic soil. Apparently, the plants were sustained by humidity from fog.
The green, slightly yellow rosettes were up to more or less 2cm
in diameter and were very similar to those of _P.lusitanica_ with the
leaves folded somewhat inwards. The flowers, as I remember, were a light
purple-lilac with darker venation, a yellow spur, and a yellow blotch in
the bottom part of the throat. The young scapes were only a few cm tall
and leaning outwards. The older scapes reached around 10cm in height, were
more erect, and the fruit were somewhat wedge-shaped. Actually, it was as
if someone had pinched the top part of the fruit towards both sides,
making "wings". I was informed that after pollinization the flower scapes
grew and leanend back against the wall, becomin more erect.
I don't think I saw any scapes with 2 bifurcations, but plenty
were seen with one bifurcation, though most were single-flowered
non-bifurcated scapes. The scapes were often covered with trapped insects
on their glands, even more than on the leaves. So back to the old
question, can _Pings_ digest the animals trapped by the scapes??
_P.macroceras_ were seen growing on a single rock right next to
the _P.ramosa_ site. There were not too many plants, but the larger
rosettes (maybe 4 or 5cm in diameter) were a beautiful yellow color which
contrasted fantastic with the marvelous dark purple-pink flowers. The
flowers were also larger than those of _P.ramosa_. The only difference I
could see between the sites where both species grew was that _P.ramosa_
was in shadier more vertical rocks, while _P.macroceras_ were in sunnier
spots on horizontal to almost vertical surfaces. Though in one spot they
were seen together, growing side-by-side.
It was great to be back in the field again, almost 5 months after
my last hike in Brazil!! It was interesting to walk in habitats totally
different from those I'm used to and I was surprised to see many plants
which I remembered from the 3 years I spent during my childhood in the
USA. Even some of their common names (which I hadn't heard for years and
never thought could still be stacked away somewhere in the back of my
mind) came back to memory!
Fernando Rivadavia
Tokyo, Japan