Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 20:57:13 +0900 From: ss66428 <ss66428@hongo.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg891$foo@default> Subject: African Expedition '97: the last chapter (at last!)
To all,
First of all my sincere apologies to everyone I haven't replied to
over the past few months, especially the ones I owe seeds to. I've been really
maddeningly busy and disorganized, but hope to get my correspondence back on
track again this month. Thanks for the patience!
Anyways, here it is, at last, the final chapter that was missing from
the account of my African expedition last year. I'd last written in December,
I believe, about the CPs in the Cape Town area. Because of the many
modifications made since then, I will include this part as well. If any of you
]want the unabridged and uncensored account of the trip, please write to me
personally and ask for a copy. Hope you all enjoy and sorry for any
repetitions.....
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..........
Eric did a great job of helping me forget the robbery in Jo'burg by
showing me the most fantastic scenery and Drosera in the world! It started
when we 1st arrived at his house. I spent a long time drooling over his
fantastic CP collection. Amazing!!! I saw D.cistiflora in flower for the 1st
time there. I'd long desired to see its beautiful flowers, a most awaited
moment, but only a taste of what we would see later in the wild. I'd also
never seen many of the other S.African species he had in his collection as
well as so many mature, flowering Heliamphora. Another first for me, a total
knockout, was his giant and fully mature 17-year-old N.rajah!!! I didn't
even know there were any of that size in cultivation!
I was surprised at how the sandstone highlands of S.Africa reminded
me of Brazil. There was even the Coca-Cola-colored water, resulting from
excess tannic acid. I saw tons of Drosera in the CT area, but can't
understand why there weren't tons of Utrics and Genlisea as well. The only
one I saw was U.bisquamata, although I later saw more in the Jo'burg/Pretoria
area. I was also surprised to see how the fynbos (local vegetation which is
supposedly unique and which botanists around the world rave about) are similar
to the campo rupestre vegetation back in Brazil. The species may be
different, but the general low, bushy aspect is very similar. The geology is
apparently identical: sandstone highlands with lots of seepages and streams
tainted reddish-black with tannic acid plus plenty of sandy soil (often black
with ashes from previous year's fires). Even the climate is very similar,
with slightly longer winters, and most important of all, the fact that winter
is the rainy season and summer is the dry (opposite in Brazil). I told Eric
that the solution to his problems in cultivating D.graminifolia were simple.
All he had to do was plant them out on Table Mt.!!
Funny enough, the lowland CP habitats I saw in the CT area, occupied
mostly by D.cistiflora, D.pauciflora, D.zeyheri, and D.trinervia, members of
sect.Ptycnostygma (which were also present on the highlands) were very
similar to the habitats I remembered from Western Australia! These species
die down during the summer dry season and then grow back from roots when the
rains begin in the winter, similarly to the tuberous species of W.A. But
unlike the latter, these species of sect.Ptycnostygma do not seem to have a
very good biological clock and only grow back when the rains arrive (unlike
the tuberous species, which I've noticed will begin sprouting back from
dormancy at the right time even if you haven't watered its pot).
In fact the habitats occupied by these sect.Ptycnostygma species in
the highlands are apparently those which dry out faster, in comparison to
the habitats occupied by other local species of Drosera. It reminds me a bit
of the D.hirtella and D.colombiana-complex species back in Brazil, which are
also found in drier habitats and often go dormant in the dry season.
The first place Eric took me to see CPs in situ was at the Silvermine
Nature Reserve, followed by Red Hill near Simonstown on the same day. We saw
D.cuneifolia, D.glabripes, D.hilaris, D.ramentacea, D.aliciae, D.zeyheri,
D.admirabilis(?), D.cistiflora, and D.trinervia. Nine Drosera species in
only a few hours!! Fascinating plants!! Especially D.cistiflora and
D.pauciflora. I couldn't get over all their giant flowers up to 7cm across!
And what amazingly beautiful colors too!!! They varied from white to purple
to red to pink to light-yellow. My favorite were the deep red D.cistiflora.
What a blast! In fact one day I noticed that the D.cistiflora still had their
flowers open late in the afternoon, around 4 or 5pm! I wonder if this is
common for these and related sect.Ptycnostygma species. I also noticed that
D.pauciflora has large tentacles on the tips of its leaves like D.burmannii
and that these likewise close rather quickly when stimulated.
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. I
hiked all around the valley, saw numerous CPs (including D.capensis "narrow
leaf" which doesn't seem to nearly as weedy in the wild as it is in
cultivation!!), but not D.regia. Later on, comparing notes with Eric, I
discovered that I'd trampled right through the D.regia site and not seen
them. I'd been looking for long leaves in an open habitat, but found out
from Eric that 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, next time......
Another very interesting place I went was Hermanus, a bit further
south along the coast from CT. This is a famous whale-watching spot, but
unfortunately there were no whales on the day I went. Yet the CPs I saw
compensated rather well for the abscence of whales. Again I was alone and
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). I fortunately 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 discovered by Eric between
D.glabripes and any one of the rosetted species growing in that area, we're
not sure which. It had leaves very similar to those of D.glabripes, but no
stem.
Probably the most amazing CP in the Hermanus area, in my opinion,
was D.slackii. According to Eric, these were not so large at that time of
year, but the color of the plants was all that caught my attention. They were
entirely colored in a beautiful deep pink-red! 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 are D.curviscapa and D.esterhuysenae, both
considered synonymous with 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 good
species or varieties, the three seemed to act as distinct taxa in the wild.
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 what later proved to be a large-flowered U.bisquamata. But
this site was not flooded and the D.sp."floating" were stemless, with small
rosettes flat on the soil surface. A few months later, my friend Rob Gibson
from Australia passed by this site and he believed these small plants are
actually the true D.admirabilis.
Eric also took me to a place a few hours north from Cape Town on the
Cedarberg Mts. where we saw numerous Drosera as well as blooming Roridula
dentata reaching almost 2m in height and at one place growing in a very dense
and large stand. The most interesting CP that day was probably D.alba, which
we saw 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 Mts., Eric also showed me a possible new variety of
D.cistiflora which he calls D.cistiflora var.'Eitz'. These plants have
very short stems and the basal rosette is made up of long, semi-erect leaves
similar to those of D.adelae, instead of the usual flat rosettes of shorter
more D.trinervia/aliciae-like leaves. The flowers are also a unique lilac
color, with darker edges than center. Nonetheless, I suspect this may all be
ecological. It's very similar to the local form of D.cistiflora which is also
short-stemmed and was sometimes growing nearby.
An indication of this possible variation was a single unique specimen
we found that day. It had a small rosette with tongue-shaped leaves below
younger, narrower, longer leaves. But what caught our attention the most was
its flower, which was a dark pink-red, a color which Eric claimed to have
never 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. D.zeyheri is considered by some to be no more than a stemless
for of D.cistiflora. I saw this plant at two or more sites in the CT area and
it appeared to me to be a valid species, claerly distinct from D.cistiflora,
although it does sometimes have one to three leaves on the flower scape.
After Cape Town I flew to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe on its western
border with Zambia, where I spent 2 days. I found no CPs there, but had a hell
of a wild time whitewater rafting and bungi jumping. The falls themselves
were not so impressive, at least for lucky people like me who have been to
Iguazu Falls. From Vic Falls I crossed Zimbabwe from west to east on the so
called 'chicken busses' (an adventure in itself - including the unforgetable
experience of tasting a local delicacy: GIANT FRIED STINK BUGS!! AAARGH!!!).
The busses stop at every single village along the way and it took me a day
and a half to reach my next destination: the Chimanimani Mountains on the
border with Mozambique.
Unfortunately time was short and I only had two days to hike around
Chimanimani, although this proved to be enough for the sad reason that there
simply were very few CPs. I was expecting to find several of the interesting
tropical African Drosera, Utrics, and Genlisea, but was only able to turn up
*2* CP species: D.natalensis and D.burkeana.
The 1st CP site found had large beautiful specimens of D.natalensis
and D.burkeana in flower, growing in a grassy seepage. D.burkeana was a very
deep wine-red color, with spoon-shaped leaves (lamina cuneate) in a flat,
loose rosette and the flowers were a pure white. I've cultivated plants
labelled as D.burkeana several times in the past, but they all turned out to
be D.spatulata or D.aliciae forms. I've never even seen the true D.burkeana
in cultivation, which is a pitty since it's really a lovely species, and
possibly easy to grow too. Too bad that was the only D.burkeana site I found
at Chimanimani.
D.natalensis had semi-erect, less reddish, wider, triangular leaves
with lamina indistinct from the petioles. Its flowers were pink-lilac. It
took me a while to identify it because of its similarity to D.dielsiana, both
being distinguished only by floral details and seed shape. Leaf shape is
supposedly very variable in D.natalensis, and truly the ones I cultivated
many years ago collected near Pietermaritzburg (Natal Province, S.Africa) had
a very different leaf shape in comparison to the ones native to Chimanimani.
I found several D.natalensis sites at Chimanimani, including at the top of
Mt.Binga (the highest point in the park: 2347m), mostly flowerless, so I can
not guarantee they were all this species. Maybe D.dielsiana was also present.
It was great to find these two Drosera, which I hadn't seen yet on
that trip, nor had I ever seen true D.burkeana alive, so I was really very
happy. Plus the views and the hiking were excellent. Nonetheless, Chimanimani
was still terribly disappointing, considering the CP potential of those
mountains (with tons of CP-friendly habitats), plus all the distance I'd
travelled to get there (and all the associated hardships), the incredible
amount I hiked in those 2 days searching for CPs, the expectation I'd built
up in relation to the cool CPs which possibly grew there, as well as the
fatal risk of hiking in an area which was seeded with land mines during the
Mozambican civil war and where hikers are recommended NOT to stray far from
the trails (something I have a hard time with!),
After Chimanimani, I worked my way back back down to South Africa and
spent a few days doing safari at the amazing Kruger National Park, as well
as seeing some beautiful scenic highlights in the vicinity. I saw many
seemingly good CP sites around a place called God's Window (where Thomas
Carow - Hi Thomas! - has found CPs in the past), but unfortunately (and
frustratingly) could not get off the tour van to explore.
I spent my last week in Africa with Dot, Marc, and Jacques Cappaert,
friends of Eric Green's who live in the Jo'burg/Pretoria area and run the
South African Carnivorous Plant Society. We spent lots of time discussing
cultivation both in theory and in practice. As Dot said, I "went back to
basics", digging into my memory from 12 years of experience in CP cultivation,
showing them how to multiply several different types of CPs and handing out
all the tips and suggestions possible.
It was actually fun to once again repot plants, divide VFT bulbs,
collect seeds, pollinate the small flowers of some Drosera and Utricularia,
prepare soil mixes, and to have my hands (as well as under my nails) covered
with peat, vermiculite, sand, and all those weird ingredients used in CP
soils. I hadn't done any of that in over a year! I also helped identify some
of their plants, many of which had been grown from seeds and were those
commonly misidentified species, with wrong names but nonetheless traded by
CPers around the world.
Another thing I was especially glad to show them, was how to find CPs
in the wild! We went on a walk up the Magaliesberg Mts., but it was too dry
at that particular spot. The unknown rosetted Drosera which they'd seen there
a few months earlier during the wet season (the first and only wild CPs ever
seen by Dot and Marc) were no longer there. So I decided to teach them the
easier way to find CP sites in the wild: get the location data from herbaria!
So then Marc and I spent a morning at the Pretoria herbarium, looking
quickly at thousands of sheets with Drosera, Utricularia, and Genlisea. We
wrote down a few locations which were in the Pretoria/Jo'burg area (as well
as a few farther away) and headed out after lunch. I never thought we'd get
lucky already that afternoon nor that we'd find so many interesting CPs!
Driving along a road next to which some Utrics had been found, my
CP radar (well-tuned after 7 years of intensive CPing in the Brazilian
outback) gave a loud BEEP when we passed by a disturbed area consisting of
sandy soil with a large pool of water surrounded by short grasses. We passed
under a barbed wire fence and sure enough we stumbled upon thousands of
D.burkeana forming a beautiful wine-red ring around the large muddy puddle,
growing thickly and healthily! They were in flower too! On the contrary to
the pure white flowers I'd seen at Chimanimani, these plants near Pretoria
had nice pink-lilac flowers, the same color as in most Brazilian species.
Among the D.burkeana there was also plenty of U.firmula. This species
has numerous small flowers on scapes up to around 20cm high. The color of the
flowers were very striking, I had never seen anything like them. They were
a dark grey-purple, nearly black, with orange-yellow at the base of the lower
lip. In a small area we also found a small form of what I believe was
U.bisquamata with yellow flowers and scapes only up to about 10cm high.
Driving on, we went in search of another site where G.hispidula had
been collected. On the way, we coincidentally bumped into the nice lady who
had taken us up the Magaliesberg Mts. and who had accompanied us to the
herbarium. She helped us locate the second site, taking us to the
approximate place along another road. We climbed under another barbed wire
fence and my CP radar started beeping loudly at a small stream nearby. As
soon as we got there, I saw them: D.MADAGASCARIENSIS!!! They formed a dense
mat alongside the stream, growing mostly among grasses, in some places on
bare rocks covered with a thin film of water, and sometimes the rosettes
were bobbing on the surface of the slow-flowing water.
I'd been sure I would see this plant in Zimbabwe and felt terribly
frustrated for not having found it, thinking I would leave Africa without
this pleasure. Well, there it was, although quite different than the ones
I'd seen in cultivation, which were straggly plants with short reddish leaves
and round lamina distributed on long stems. I'd noticed at the herbarium
earlier that day that this was a variable species and that there are at least
two forms. The form described above seems to be the most widespread in Africa,
whilst the form common in S.Africa seems to be what was once named
D.madagascariensis var.major. These plants have short thick stems, large
green leaves, longer obovate lamina, and wide petioles often canaliculated on
the underside. A few had flower scapes, but it was already too late in the
day and none of the pink-lilac flowers were open.
I had also been frustrated at not finding any Genlisea in Zimbabwe,
but alongside the D.madagascariensis I finally saw G.hispidula with pink
flowers, my first Genlisea in Africa. Although it's a common and widespread
specie (including in cultivation) I was still glad to see it. Around that
stream we also found U.firmula and a small patch of U.livida. The flowers of
the latter were cream in color, almost white, very similar in shape to the
lilac form I'd cultivated years before, but differed in that it produced
seeds, while the commonly cultivated form does not.
Marc and I did quite a lot of CP hunting over the next few days,
driving as far away as Thabazimbi, which is about 200km north of Jo'burg. On
the Magaliesberg Mts. we found a small seepage at the source of a stream
with D.madagascariensis and G.hispidula, the same in appearance as the 1st
ones we saw. One day we were joined by a biologist and CPer named Robert
Kunitz who also lives in the Jo'burg area. I'd heard a lot about Robert and
his wife Michelle (also a CPer) from Eric Green. Robert took Marc and I to a
place on the Magaliesberg Mts. called Mountain Sanctuary Park, where he and
Michelle had seen CPs a few years before.
We hiked along two streams in this park (beautiful scenery!) and
found plenty of CPs. There was D.burkena with pink flowers growing at several
sunny and wet areas along the stream together with U.firmula. We also found
lots of D.madagascariensis at one sunny, boggy, grassy site, again with scapes
but unopened flowers, Strangely, we saw no Genlisea. Although preferring
different habitats, we find one D.burkeana among the D.madagascariensis. I'd
been suspecting that the widely-cultivated D.sp."Magaliesberg" and/or
D.nidiformis are hybrids between D.madagascariensis var.major and D.burkena,
but there were no hybrids at that site nor did we find anything like D.sp.
"Mag."/D.nidiformis at the Magaliesberg Mts.
One more CP was found along the streams in this park: D.collinsiae!
This species, which reminds me of a D.intermedia with longer scapes, was
growing in more shady places, often in tiny cracks on bare rocks or on a thin
layer of mosses on vertical walls. These rock walls formed a beautiful small
canyon along one of the streams, with enticing pools of cristal-clear water.
It was a hot day, and I didn't resist a quick dip in that gorgeous place!
Anyways, we found D.collinsiae in bloom, but the pink-lilac flowers were
already almost completely closed.
To wrap up my stay with the Cappaerts, Dot organized the first meeting
of the ACPS, where I did a small talk with the slides I'd taken of Neps in
Malaysia and of the CPs in the Cape Town region + at Eric Green's collection.
It was lots of fun, although many people did not come because of a heavy
thunderstorm. Very bad timing, considering it hadn't rained in weeks!
And that's the end (finally!) of the account of my African (and
Malaysian) adventure in 1997!!! My eternal thanks to the Cappaert and the
Green families who did so much for me and without whom I wouldn't have seen
a fraction of the CPs I saw. With this trip to Africa, I have now seen wild
CPs on all continents, except Antarctica and, strangely enough, North America!
Best Wishes,
Fernando Rivadavia
Tokyo, Japan
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