My bog adventure! (and other stuff)

From: Paul V. McCullough (pvmcull@voicenet.com)
Date: Mon May 05 1997 - 21:25:02 PDT


Date: Tue, 06 May 1997 00:25:02 -0400
From: "Paul V. McCullough" <pvmcull@voicenet.com>
To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com
Message-Id: <aabcdefg1792$foo@default>
Subject: My bog adventure! (and other stuff)


  First up, Nick Plummer pointed out that my new droseras (See my
posting in CP-Digest #1072) may actually be immature d. adelae sprouting
from the roots of the adult cluster. Actually, I did see a drawing
(After my posting to CPD 1072... ugh...) in "Carnivorous Plants of the
World" (Pietropaolo) which showed the root plantlets to have very
different leaf/trap shapes (page 100 of the paperback version). This
may indeed be the case- I'll know for sure when the spathulated plant's
flowers bloom. Thank you for pointing this out, Nick.

  Today, my wife and I were happy to see (with our eyes, not with our
hands... or a shovel) S. purpurea and d. rotundifolia growing in their
natural environments! Before I go on, I should say up front that I am a
firm believer in the protection of these plants. I will not, therefore,
divulge the where-abouts of these plants. Don't email me with requests
for their locations. The plants were safe, and not in need of a
"rescue".

  The sundews were just emerging from their winter buds in some areas
and in others, looked to be well along in their growth. Some of the
sundews were extremely red and a few of the traps were three-eighths of
an inch across. They were all healthy and doing fine.

  The Purple Pitcher plants all had well developed traps, and all had
flower scapes ramping up! Where ever pitcher plants were, so to were
sundews. The Pitchers seemed to be of both the red veined and all green
variety- all in direct sun. Sphagnum moss was also growing wildly all
over the place.

  One interesting note; sometime back, someone mentioned the difficulty
of growing drosera rotundifolia and I think I may have found the
reason. Aside from d. rotundifolia's need for a dormancy period, the
plant also seems to like things a lot wetter then any other drosera I've
seen. All of the sundews I saw today (Many spots) were at the water's
edge of streams, ponds, and lakes. Some were floating on mats of
sphagnum! I suspect that this sundew needs much wetter conditions then
others. Conversely, the s. purpureas we saw were in similar, though
slightly drier areas.

  I did take tons of pictures of the wild CP that I'll try to get
developed and posted to my page- I'll have to wait for a friend of mine
to get back from Hawaii (sigh...) - he scans my photos for me. I'll let
everyone here know when they get posted. I was really glad that my wife
saw these CP in the wild; I think we have a new fan amongst our ranks.
It's one thing to see plants in a store or a greenhouse, and quite
another to see them in the wild.

Cheers,
Paul

--
Paul V. McCullough
http://www.voicenet.com/~pvmcull



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