Date: Mon, 08 Dec 1997 15:55:59 +0900 From: ss66428 <ss66428@hongo.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg4651$foo@default> Subject: African Expedition, continuation at last!
To all,
I've been wanting to write extensively about my travels in Africa, but
just can't seem to find the time. Thus I will have to make it short. Or let's
say shorter than I had initially intended (yes, no endless chapters of
adventure this time). Looking back, I see that I posted two mails from Eric
Green's house to the listserv, telling about the CPs I'd seen in the Cape Town
region and my experiences in Malaysia.
Just a quick summary, for those who don't remember any more, I spent a
week travelling around the northern parts of Penninsular Malaysia with Bruce
Salmon from New Zealand. It took us a while, but we did find Nepenthes, the
first I ever saw in the wild. We found N.sanguinea, N.ampullaria, N.gracillima,
N.macfarlanei, and N.mirabilis. Ironically, the first CP we saw was a small
white-flowered unidentified terrestrial Utric!
I then went off to South Africa and was robbed of everything I had only
3h after arriving in Johannesburg. Got out of there as quick as I could and
spent 2 weeks recovering at Eric Green's house in Cape Town. We spent those 2
weeks going around the highlands of the Cape region in search of CPs. Other
than the most amazing scenery, I also saw the most amazing Drosera I'd ever
seen in my life. It was simply unbelievable the size of the flowers of
D.cistiflora and D.pauciflora, up to 7cm across, in a variation of colors
which boggles the imagination: white, purple, lilac, pink, cream, and red,
most often with a very dark-green center. I think the red-flowered form of
D.cistiflora was my favorite among all the CPs I saw in Africa.
One very curious thing I realised with D.pauciflora at Eric's fantastic
CP collection, is the striking resemblence with D.burmanni, D.sessilifolia,
and D.glanduligera. Not only do they all have similarly-shaped yellowish
leaves, but I noticed that D.pauciflora also has those large glandular hairs
at the tips of its leaves. And to my surprise, they were also capable of quick
movement, similar to that in D.burmannii and D.sessilifolia, but slower than in
the amazing D.glanduligera.
One of the most interesting places Eric took me to was the Silvermine
Nature Reserve near Cape Town and showed me D.ramentacea, D.aliciae,
D.trinervia, D.cuneifolia, D.admirabilis, D.cistiflora, D.hilaris, and
D.glabripes. UFA! So many Drosera!!! But strangely no Utrics nor Genlisea in
seemingly suitable habitats (and in fact very similar to the vegetation know
as 'campo rupestre' in Brazil).
Among the many beautiful mountain passes I went through, I think my
favorite was Baines Kloof. Fantastic views, and tons of CPs. This is the
famous location of D.regia, the only know site for this large species. I had
rented a car and gone there alone, following directions given by Eric Green.
I walked all around a valley looking for D.regia, but couldn't find any. I did
find several other CPs like D.capensis, U.bisquamata, and even a possible new
species Eric calls D.sp.'floating' because its rosettes are often located
above a short stem, bobbing on the surface of water.
Later on, comparing notes with Eric, I discovered that I had trampled
right through the D.regia site and not seen them. I had been looking for long
leaves in an open habitat, but found out from Eric they actually grew in thick
grasses and that the leaves were still not too long because the plants had
just recently broken out of dormancy. Oh well, maybe next time......
Another very interesting place I went was Hermanus, a bit further south
along the coast from Cape Town. This is a famous whale-watching spot, but
unfortunately there were no whales on the day I went. But the CPs I saw
compensated rather well for the abscence of whales. Again I was following
Eric's instructions and maps on how to find the CP sites (which no matter how
detailed, are always something very difficult to pass on to someone else), but
had no problems on that day and found all the CPs I expected to see plus more.
There were lots of D.cistiflora with white to light-pink flowers
spread all around, as well as white-flowered D.trinervia. Another very common
species was the beautiful D.glabripes, which has reddish spoon-shaped leaves
on stems around 10-15cm high, reminding me somewhat of D.chrysolepis back home.
I even found two rare specimens of a hybrid between D.glabripes and any one of
the rosetted species growing in that area, we are not sure which. It had leaves
very similar to those of D.glabripes, but there was no stem.
Probably the most amazing CP there in my opinion was D.slackii.
According to Eric, they were not so large at that time of year, but the color
of the plants was all that caught my attention. They were a deep pink-red and
even the stipules were pink. The shape of the leaves in this species are really
unique as is the presence of the numerous thick dark-red hairs on the backside
of the leaves.
I also found what Eric says is D.curviscapa and D.esterhuysenae, two
species considered synonymous of D.aliciae by Jan Schlauer in his CP Database.
I don't know if the names are correctly applied here, so it would be better for
me to describe what I saw. First of all there was D.aliciae, with reddish-green
compact rosettes, leaves pressed flat on the ground, and growing in wet to
humid areas in the semi-shade of grasses. Then there was D.curviscapa(?)
growing in drier sandy soil, often semi-shaded by other plants, with larger
green semi-erect leaves. D.esterhuysenae(?) also grew in drier sandy soil, but
under full sunlight. The leaves were an orange-green color, flat on the ground,
and they had huge tentacles at the tips of the leaves. Whether they are good
species or varieties, these three taxa definitely seem to be worth taking into
consideration.
Another plant seen at Hermanus was Roridula gorgonias. Although not
considered a CP, it is nonotheless very interesting and similar to a CP. The
plants were shorter than a meter, since fires had killed the larger ones a few
years back, according to Eric. But there were lots of them and it was
fantastic to observe those bugs which live on the Roridula leaves, crawling
around unimpeded by the sticky hairs and feeding on the insects captured by
the plant. At Eric's collection I experimented placing these bugs on Drosera,
Drosophyllum, and Pinguicula and found out to my surprise that they could crawl
around just as easily on these structurally similar CPs, although on the former
two the bugs became coated with mucilage.
Unexpectedly, I also found D.sp.'floating' at Hermanus, which Eric
only knew from Baines Kloof. It was growing in a very wet spot by a stream
together with an unidentified flowerless Utric. But this site was not flooded
and the plants were stemless, only simple small rosettes flat on the soil
surface.
Eric also took me to a place a few hours north from Cape Town on the
Cedarberg Mts. where we saw several Drosera as well as rare stands of Roridula
dentata sometimes growing as large bushes up to 2m in height!
The most interesting CP of that day was probably D.alba, which we
found by the thousands growing in very wet spots by streams in a thin layer
of mosses over bare rocks. In the dry season these areas dry up completely and
D.alba survives as dormant roots. The most curious characteristic of this
species though are its dimorphic leaves. The first leaves to come up form a
small rosette similar to that of D.trinervia or D.aliciae, although of a deep
wine-red color. Then all of a sudden the leaves begin growing erect and
filiform in shape, like those of a small D.filiformis or the hybrid
D.filiformis X D.intermedia. The flowers are small and white.
At the Cedarberg we also saw the local small reddish form of
D.cistiflora, which has a very short stem bearing only a few leaves. We also
saw a possible variety of D.cistiflora which Eric calls D.cistiflora var.
'Eitz'. This is very similar to the Cedarberg form of D.cistiflora, but the
leaves of the basal rosette surrounding the stem are semi-erect and long,
similar to those of D.adelae, instead of the usual flat rosettes of shorter
more D.trinervia/aliciae-like leaves. There was really lots of variation and
I'm not sure if D.cist.'Eitz' can be separated from D.cistiflora.
An indication of this possible variation was a single unique specimen
we found that day. It had a rosette made up of older tongue-shaped leaves plus
younger narrower and longer leaves. But what caught our attention the most was
its flower, which was a dark pink-red, a color which Eric claimed to never
have seen among S.African Drosera. I think it was possibly just one of the
freaks showing how variable D.cistiflora can be, but Eric thinks it might be
something new......
There is a stemless form of D.cistiflora which is considered by some
to be a separate species, called D.zeyherii. I saw this plant at two or more
locations in the Cape region, and it appeared to me to be a valid species. It
does sometimes have one to three leaves on the flower scape, but it still
seemed to be easily distinguishable from the smaller forms of D.cistiflora.
I was intending to stay only 10 days in Cape Town. This is not nearly
enough to see all the local CPs, but time was short and there were other places
I wanted to visit in Africa. I ended up staying 2 weeks because of problems
I had in getting a new passport, new credit card, and most difficult of all,
the new reentry visa for Japan, which I would only obtain a few weeks later.
I don't know what I would've done after the robbery if I didn't know Eric!
So once again, my endless thanks to Eric and family for all the help, for
housing and feeding me, and for taking me all around to see the most fantastic
CPs and scenery in the world!!
Next..... pure adrenaline at Victoria Falls, crossing Zimbabwe on 'chicken
busses', risking hikes over the land mine-infested mountains of Chimanimani,
safari in Kruger National Park, and CPs of the Pretoria-Johannesburg area.
All the Best,
Fernando Rivadavia
Tokyo, Japan
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