Date: Tue, 20 Jul 99 19:15 EDT From: Dave Evans <T442119@RUTADMIN.RUTGERS.EDU> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg2640$foo@default> Subject: Re: RE: Drosera brevifolia
Dear Barry, David and List,
> >I'm working on propagating this thing, and will then start distributing it
> >via the ICPS seedbank.
>
> And once it gets into the ICPS seed bank, please be sure to let us know that
> it has such superior qualities. I know this is incorrect (least the
> taxonomists get riled) because it's seed but something cute like D.
> brevifolia "Rip van Winkle."
I really hate to disappoint, but I'm the one that found this
plant and I don't think it's anything special... I think that Barry
is just cultivating it the right way!
About this Drosera: It is from along highway 17, ten or
twenty miles north of Charleston, SC. _Sarracenia minor_ could
be found near by and D.capillaris was all over the place.
I was on a road trip the see CP's with Tom Hayes and he was
rather insistant that there was no way in heck that my efforts
at trying to cultivate those super small rosettes would be a
success.
Back then, in 1996 or was it 97?, everyone in the CP circle
was a firm believer that D.brevifolia is an annual. Even though
I had, to this point, never tried to cultivate this species, I
was not so sure. After all, the roots I would see on friends'
plants seemed far too thick and long for an annual. Somehow, I
had gotten the idea that the rosettes are empheral and the roots
much more likely to still be there next year, sprouting new rosettes.
I was thinking that they had two seasons, spring and fall; with
winter and the dry summer as dormancy.
Back to the road side in Carolina: All I did was pick out a
chunk of soil with three rosettes. I picked that chunk because
it looked like it would stay together for the trip back to Jersey and
because the rosettes were big. Big is very relative here as they
were still very, very small. Once in cultivation, they grew much
larger than what I ever saw in the wild and the flowers were huge!
The next or maybe the year after, Jan published his Drosera
paper in CPN and he seemed to be the first person to officially
reconize that there is more to D.brevifolia than meets the eye.
He grouped it with sundews like D.cistiflora which go dormant in
the dry summer and come back from thick roots. However, I don't
know if Jan was aware that D.brevifolia can do this too, he was
looking at the flowers....
Barry, I don't have that plant anymore, I think I killed the
last of them in freezing weather this past winter :( Also, you
should have no trouble getting roots to strike. :) I never got
any leaves to strike, but hey, you are doing better with this plant
than me.... So good luck!!! That "breed" of brevifolia produces
very beautiful rosettes.
Dave Evans
P.S. What I know about D.brevifolia indicates to me that real
experts need to take another, much longer look at this sundew.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Jan 02 2001 - 17:32:01 PST