Date: Tue, 06 Jul 1999 12:02:08 +0100 From: Bill Tribe <wrt20@cam.ac.uk> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg2479$foo@default> Subject: Drosera pic in The Private Lives of Plants
>Hey Dave,
>
>>On page 285 of The Private Lives of Plants, there is a picture of a stalked
>>sundew from Mount Roraima. Fernando, in your adventures on the tepui, were
>>you able to identify a stalked Drosera? Seems like >I remember you
>>mentioning it in one of your recent posts.
>>The Drosera that quite often offered by some of the cp societies as
>> >Drosera "? tepuis." Has that been named yet?
>
> What do you mean by "stalked"? Is the stem visible, with long
>internodes between the leaves or is it densely covered with old leaves? What
>is the shape of the leaf? Any other details? Considering you say it's from
>Mt.Roraima, it's most likely D.roraimae, the only species I know off from
>that mt. which forms a long stem (covered with old leaves). But you never
>know, sometimes these photos are mixed up and might be from another
>mountain. As for the D.sp."tepuis", I've never heard of it nor seen it.
>Description?
>
I hope I'm not too far behind this post, and someone has answered it
already. The photo in the book is the same one that appears in the 1989
National Geographic article written, if my memory is correct, by Uwe
George, who is something of an authority about the tepuis. I seem to
remember being unclear from the text of the NG article whether the photo
was indeed from Mt. Roraima - but the plant is identified as D. roraimae.
This ID also seems to be the correct one, given a six inch stem, the
brilliant red colouration, the fact that the back of the leaf blades are
distinctly hirsute (sorry, can't remember the right terms!) and the fact
that the leaf blade itself is of a similar length to its petiole. To my
knowledge these are the notable features of this species, though I have
this only from second hand sources, and not from the originally published
article. The latter two features would certainly distinguish it from a "D.
roraimae" which has sometimes been distributed in Europe, and which is
probably a red form of D. intermedia, but is certainly not the genuine
article.
I wasn't aware that the internode length was important - Fernando, can
you give us a full description, maybe confirming (or denying) those
features I've described above? Definitive information on this species is
hard to come by, so, given reason to believe that it may soon enter wide
circulation, good info would be very useful.
Bill Tribe
Cambridge, UK
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