Date: Tue, 27 May 1997 14:52:40 +0900 (JST) From: ss66428 <ss66428@hongo.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg2074$foo@default> Subject: Brazilian Expedition 3
Michael and others,
>This is like a serial. You left us in suspense and we are waiting for
>the next installment. Hurry! as we cant wait for the continuing
>adventures.
Sorry for the delay, but I've been rather busy. I wasn't planning on
writing the B.E.3 today, but I guess I should end the suspense. So where was I?
Suddenly I froze and my blood rushed through my veins as I heard Fabio
cry out, his voice a mixture of amazement and disbelief. "Ai meu Deus!" (= Oh
my God!)
Like a grasshopper, I sprung up from the crouching position I was in,
studying the purplish-red rosettes of D.montana var.tomentosa(?), and in one
excited leap was standing next to Fabio, wondering what could have made him
utter those words the way he had and why he was just standing there with his
mouth open and his hands on his head in amazement. I looked down and could not
help but parrot Fabio. "Ai meu Deus!!" In fact I think that's all we did for a
few seconds; stand there staring and uttering thinks like "Oh my God!" and
"What is that?!"
I've found numerous possible new species of Drosera, Genlisea, and
Utrics in my travels through Brazil over the past 7 years, but it's very rare
to come across something so completely unusual that it completely baffles me
for more than a minute. With this new discovery, we ended up spending several
minutes in perplexity, wondering what it is we had stumbled upon.
Scattered around the ground were numerous golden-yellow or orangish
Drosera rosettes with semi-erect leaves, maybe around 2-4cm in diameter. Still
standing, in awe, and trying to get a hold of my senses, I tried to come up
with some identification for this taxon before us. Knowing that the chances
were very low of finding a clearly distinct new taxa, utterly different from
anything else I'd seen previously (especially in the state of Minas Gerais,
where I've travelled around so much already), my first assumption was that what
we had before us was just some new variety of D.sp."Congonhas", a new species
similar to D.montana which I'd discovered a few years back at the Serra do Cipo
and which sometimes has similarly-colored rosettes.
Before anybody gets confused, let me explain that D.sp."Congonhas" was
named after an area of the S.do Cipo called Congonhas. There is no relation to
the place where Fabio and I were now making this new discovery, the Serra da
Mangabeira near the town of Congonhas do Norte. Sorry for the confusion in
names!
Anyways, the notion that these weird Drosera we'd just discovered could
be some form of D.sp."Congonhas" or maybe some ecotype of it, was quickly ruled
out (although I still believe that D.sp."Cong." is possibly the closest
relative of these plants we found). As soon as we got down on our hands and
knees to examine the plants more closely, we noticed that not only were the
leaves semi-erect, but they also had more acute leaf tips (D.sp."Cong." has
flat rosettes and cuneate leaves). Also, some of the older plants showed small
columns up to 2 or 3cm in height formed by the black remains of dead leaves.
These plants were also lacking the giant glandular hairs found on the leaf tips
of D.sp."Cong."
One of the first things that came to my mind was "Find a flower scape!"
We were lucky that the critters were in fact flowering. Although almost all
scapes were still just emerging from the rosettes we were able to find 3 very
large pink-lilac flowers and noticed that each scape had only 2 to maybe 5
flowers. To my surprise and joy, I noticed that the scapes (which were about
the same color as the rosettes, yet more reddish) were densely covered with
numerous long white hairs, all the way from the base to the sepals.
We must've been dumbstruck by these beauties because the significance
of the simple white hairs present on the scape did not hit me immediately. But
suddenly it did come to me and I screamed out "Oh my God! Fabio! This is it!
This is THE D.monatana var.schwackei!!!" It had taken a while to dawn on us I
guess because we were expecting D.m.scwackei to have the typical flat,
purplish-red rosetted of D.m.var.montana and var.tomentosa. We had been fooled
by the few available herbaria of var.schwackei, containing old specimens which
had obviously lost most of their color and had their leaves pressed into flat
rosettes. Also, none of the herbaria I'd seen showed any sign that they were
capable of forming short columns of dead leaves.
Still 'oooohing' and 'aaaahing', but already with my camera out and
going about the normal activities carried out when an interesting CP is
discovered, it was Fabio who came with the next insight. If this was the true
var.schwackei, than what were the plants discovered by Thomas Carow near
Diamantina 10 years ago? As in the first few minutes after having layed eyes
on these plants, a rush of information filled my brain and with difficulty I
once again tried to hold back a short circuit. Other than the photos of Thomas'
D.sp."golden leaf", I had seen an actual plant in flower in his collection a
year ago and had afterwards concluded that it must be a hybrid between
D.graminifolia and D.sp."Congonhas", which would easily explain several of its
morphological characteristics, the rarity of the plants in the wild, and the
fact that it had never produced viable seeds in 10 years of cultivation,
according to Thomas. I guess the changes caused by cultivation of the plant
had confused me and there was also the fact that there was too much to see in
Thomas' fantastic CP collection and I didn't waste too much time with any
particular pot. But how should I explaing the lack of seeds in cultivation?
Thus at first I wasn't sure if what we'd just found was the same taxon
Thomas had found and decided that I would only be able to get any conclusion
out of this mess if I was actually able to find D.sp."golden leaf" at
Diamantina (which was our next stop on that trip). The strange fact the they'd
never produced seeds in cultivation held on strongly in my thoughts. By what
I'd knew, all native Brazilian Drosera were self fertile.
After maybe an hour or two, Fabio and I pushed ahead, with renewed
hopes of finding more interesting CPs at the Serra da Mangabeira, with our
knees aching from having kneeled for so long on the rocky habitat of
D.m.schwackei while photographing, herborizing, collecting, etc. Unfortunately
nothing else of interest was found that day at the Serra da Mangabeira. All I
remember were large quantities of G.violacea in one area.
No more Drosera were seen. We were really hoping to find more
D.m.schwackei populations, but I was also very anxious to find D.sp."stemless
chrysolepis" a new species which I discovered several years ago at the Serra
do Cipo and have only seen on those mountains until now. I know of 3
collections from mountains not far from the S.do Cipo (including the S.da
Mangabeira and Diamantina), not to mention a collection of what seems to be
this species from Ecuador, circa 4000km away!!
Anyways, we slowly worked our way over the hills back to where we'd
left the car earlier that day. Although we hadn't found an abundance of CPs,
the discovery of the wonderful beauty which turned out to be D.m.schwackei
gave us a feeling of completeness hard to describe.
To be continued...........
Fernando Rivadavia
Tokyo, Japan
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