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BAY AREA CARNIVOROUS PLANT SOCIETY NEWSLETTER
Volume 12, Number 2, Spring 2003
April 16, 2003
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NEXT MEETING
Date: May 10, 2003, Saturday
Time: 12:00 Noon
Location: University of California Botanical Garden, Berkeley
Program: Greg Lum AIFD - "Uncovering the Mystery of Bringing
Carnivorous Plants Back into the United States"
Are you confused and bewildered about the complexity of bringing
carnivorous plants back into the United States from traveling overseas?
On several occasions when we visit far and away tropical jungles or
forests of the orient wishing to bring over plants for our own cp
collections, we are tempted to purchase plants only to figure out,
later, the dilemma of bringing them back home. We are afraid of making
a mistake and having all of our plants confiscated at the airport by
the USDA inspectors. Come to the next meeting and hear a talk by Greg
Lum who works at the San Francisco International Airport for the USDA
(now DHS-Department of Homeland Security) who will explain what they
are looking for. He will update us on the most recent changes to the
rules and enforcement policies. For example, did you know that tissue
cultured plants in flasks require a phytosanitary certificate in order
for them to be enterable into the United States? Learn everything you
need to know about how to bring your cherished cp's back home.
An approximate schedule is as follows:
12noon - Social, Display Table, Sale
1:00pm - Announcements and Program
2:15pm - Show and Tell, Silent Auction, Auction
To promote availability of interesting plants and other items, we
encourage each member to bring one or two items for the raffle, silent
auction, auction, or sale.
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The University Of California Botanical Garden is located on Centennial
Drive above the main U.C. Berkeley campus, between the Stadium and the
Lawrence Hall of Science. There is a parking fee and entrance fee. The
entrance fee will be waived if you are coming specifically for the
BACPS meeting. Once in the garden walk down the paved road to the
meeting hall on your right hand side. For more detailed directions,
please call the Information Center at 510-643-2755 or consult their
website (www.mip.berkeley.edu/garden) or the BACPS web site
(www.bacps.org).
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PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
Geoff Wong
At the last meeting several ideas were discussed regarding how to
increase member participation and to make a wider variety of plants
available to members. The latter, of course, is dependent on the former.
We would especially like to make hard-to-get plants more available to
our members. Please consider contributing plants or cuttings to the
raffle table or, for more unusual things, put them into the auction
or silent auction. Anything else that might be of interest to the
members is welcome, such as photos, posters, collectables, etc. Use
your imagination!
Joe Mazrimas and Larry Logoteta are organizing a CP display table for
the Lindsay Museum Spring Garden Festival Event on April 26-27, 2003.
If you wish to help or find out more information, please contact Joe
or Larry
Judith Finn has volunteered to bring plants for a CP table and other
related CP items for the kids at the Randall Museum Bug Day on Saturday,
May 12, 2003. If you wish to join and help out in any way, please
contact Judith. For further details about
the logistics of this annual CP event, please contact Carol Preston.
Phil Faulisi will be organizing our annual Plant
Show and Sale on August 23, 2003 at the U.C. Berkeley Botanical Garden.
I'm looking forward to seeing how it evolves, as Phil has some great
ideas for this event. I hope everyone can participate and bring in
their best specimens.
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VICE-PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
Greg Lum
This year is going by fast and I would like to encourage everyone to
attend the upcoming meeting. As many of you already know from reading
this newsletter, I'll be giving the talk on how you bring plants back
into the United States from traveling overseas. It is important
particularly since the next ICPS Conference is in Lyon, France next
year members may wish to make a few purchases along the way. Bringing
plants back into the country can be an extremely stressful event, but
the hassle can be lessened somewhat with the proper paperwork.
During the talk on Saturday, I'll try and answer all your questions
regarding what you can and cannot bring in. I will go into detail
about what the USDA (now DHS/AQI) Officers and Technicians are looking
for when you do show up at the airport with your plants. I am also in
the process of acquiring slides for a short slide presentation about
what things we are looking for.
Phil will be heading up our annual Plant Show and Sale and I am
anxious about seeing everyone bring in their prized specimens for our
three judges to critique on. Thanks to everyone who has helped already
this year with the various events we are involved in and look forward
to your continued support.
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SUMMER PLANT SHOW
Phil Faulisi
This summer's meeting is going to be another show stopper just like
what we had last year at California Carnivores. The meeting day is
Saturday, August 23, at the U.C. Botanical Garden in Berkeley. We have
some new ideas for making it even better this year than last. I would
like to personally invite you all to participate in this event by
getting your plants groomed and ready for our annual show. We need
entries in all categories of which there are several.
This event is also open to the public, so we want as many potential
new comers to see the wide variety of cp's our members grow in every
artistic sense of the word. I could also use some help with publicity
for this event. If anyone has any knowledge of where we can make public
announcements available for all to see or how, I encourage you to
either see me in person, phone or email. I'll
touch base with all of you at the next meeting and to give you more
of an update about personal contact information. This is a perfect
opportunity to show off your good stuff and even sell or trade off
your excess. We need just as much a wide variety for sale as we do for
our display. I'm open to any ideas anyone has and would greatly
appreciate volunteer participation. Let's make this the best show
we've had!
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MINUTES FROM THE FEBRURY 22, 2003 MEETING
Judith Finn
The February 2003 meeting took place at the San Francisco County Fair
Building, Strybing Arboretum, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco.
At the meeting there were 70 in attendance.
For the display table, Phil Faulisi brought in Nepenthes campanulata
from Borneo. This is a lowland Nepenthes plant that grows on limestone
cliffs and forms rosettes and stolons instead of a vine. To achieve
perfect pitchers, Phil creates an ideal environment by having a
plastic box which has a layer of pumice on the bottom, and then filled
with a layer of thick live sphagnum moss. The pots of Nepenthes are
placed on upside down pots inside the box. The developing pitchers are
then resting reaching flawlessness on the bed of moss with the ideal
humidity surrounding them. For Nepenthes campanulata, Phil dries out
the pot between waterings. He also showed Nepenthes xyphioides, which
is similar to N. gymnamphora from the highlands of Sumatra. They like
wet conditions, bright light and high humidity and a 15 degree drop
from day to night time temperatures.
Next Stephen Davis illustrated how one can have a windowsill terrarium
at home or office. He purchases his materials from Michael's Arts and
Crafts Store. He showed us a specimen of Drosera aliciae and Pinguicula
esseriana. He also recommends a type of snail that is able to eat algae
off of the glass of the terrarium.
For the raffle: we had the following plants available. Cephalotus
follicularis cv.'Hummer's Giant' and various Sarracenia and Dorsera
plants.
Geoff Wong discussed the possibility of renting the County Fair
Building (Hall of Flowers) recreation room at Strybing for future
meetings. He asked for volunteers for the Randall Museum "Bug Days",
Saturday May 16. He also asked for volunteers to help out with the
Lindsay Museum Festival Spring Flower Show on April 26 and 27. Bob,
Larry Logoteta and Joe Mazrimas volunteered to coordinate and display
carnivorous plants.
The summer meeting on Saturday, August 23, will be an opportunity for
members to show off their prized plants.
Pat Kite, who has a local TV show for kids, would like to help put on
a carnivorous plant presentation.
Christopher Turbeville offered to sell copies, at cost ($35), of Dr.
Juniper's out of print book on Carnivorous Plants.
There was a discussion that more people bring plants to the raffle to
enrich the meetings. It was also noted that if a plant is rare, we can
sell raffle tickets to give people the opportunity to buy them. Members
could also bring in cuttings of plants. It was also suggested that we
designate 2 meetings a year to selling plants instead of having a few
plants at every meeting.
Featured Speaker: Scot Medbury - Restoration of the Golden Gate
Conservatory.
Scot Medbury, Director of Strybing Arboretum, San Francisco Hall of
Flowers and San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers, andJim Henrich,
Manager of the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers.
Scot Medbury began his lecture with a slide show about the historical
background of the Conservatory and how it all began. He said that the
Conservatory is the oldest wooden conservatory existing in the Western
Hemisphere. In 1876, James Lick obtained a prefabricated wood kit for
the start of the Conservatory. In 1879, Golden Gate Park bought and
constructed the existing structure. In 1959, the side ridge vents were
removed and renovated due to years of deterioration by moisture. Fires
and earthquakes have also taken their toll on the glass structure
throughout the years. In 1995, a serve storm with winds of up to
100mph brought much damage to the Conservatory and has closed it ever
since. It has cost 25 million dollars in order to rebuild the structure.
The original structure itself was made out of wood entirely.
Construction workers have obtained milled wood from old buckskin logs
(old stumps) for the reconstruction. It has been researched that old
redwood growth is structurally stronger than secondary growth.
Currently Douglas Fir and Costal Redwood is being used for phase one.
The dome will have concealed stainless steel strips running from the
top to the foundation for greater support. There will be longer metal
arch stirrups, stainless steel fletch plates, more substantial piers
than before, foundation walls will be strengthen with rebar and safety
glass will all create a stronger building.
They began this project by having to first remove the lead paint and
asbestos putty that was used to hold the plates of glass in place. What
will be different from the original structure are the new foundation
and the restoration of the side vents that will be partially automated
with laminated glass. The utilites will run under the paths which will
be covered by a decorative grill. A computer will control the
environment which includes the fogging system for the humidity.
There will be 2 kiosks, a discovery room for kids and fabulous
nighttime lighting. The Dome Room will feature lowland tropical
plants, the right wing will be for cooler highland plants and The Pond
room which will feature 2 separate pools-one cool and one warm. The
warm pool will highlight the exotic Victoria amazonica, a 6' wide leaf
aquatic plant. Above the pool will be a metal and glass sculpture of
the plant and the pool will have a glass wall for viewing the below the
waterline structures of the plant. This should be spectacular! The room
will be also have an artificial tree for an epiphyte display surrounded
by economically important plants. There will also a mini pool of
floating aquatic plants for children to touch and a bridge which will
have a thin beam of water shooting over it. There will also be a Potted
Plant Gallery which has traditionally been an important element in a
Victorian Conservatory.
There will be changing exhibits and this is where the Bay Area
Carnivorous Plant Society can become involved. Other featured exhibits
will be Pharmacological, Dinosaur (primitive) plants and what early
plant explorers found. Other future ventures will include an Arizonia
House, Rose House, Orchid House, Courtyard events, A Greenhouse for
staff and an Education Center.
The Main Conservatory is due to be opened in September. You can follow
its progress by tracking it on the website (conservatoryofflowers.org)
We thank Scot Medbury and Jim Henrich for showing us around the
construction site and letting us walk through their temporary plastic
house to see the stored plants from the Conservatory. It was a very
enjoyable meeting.
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BACPS CALENDAR
2003
April 26-27 Lindsay Museum Spring Garden Festival
May 10 Spring Meeting, U.C. Botanical Garden
May 17 Randall Museum Bug Day
July 10 Deadline for submissions to the next newsletter
August 23 Summer Meeting, U.C. Botanical Garden: Plant Show
October 1 Deadline for submissions to the next newsletter
November 8 Fall Meeting U.C. Botanical Garden: Elections
Please note that in the previous newsletter there were some errors in
the dates.
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TREASURER'S REPORT
Joe Mazrimas
INCOME DEBITS BALANCE
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Dues 0.00
Sellers 23.00
Raffle 110.00
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TOTAL INCOME 133.00
County Fair Building Rental 35.00
Current activity (11-09-02 to 2-22-03) 98.00
Previous balance (11-09-03) 3119.81
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BALANCE (2-22-03) $3217.81
U. C. Berkeley Fund (separate) $1427.50
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ANNOUNCEMENTS
This section is available for members to post announcements (events,
items wanted available, information wanted or to share, etc.) Submit
announcements to the editor.
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BACPS CONTACTS
President Geoff Wong
Vice-President Greg Lum
Secretary Judith Finn
Treasurer Joe Mazrimas
Newsletter Editor Greg Lum
E-mail Distributor Bill Weaver
Snail Mail Distributor Paul Bourbin
Business Manager Larry Logoteta
Membership List Mike Ross
Auction Manager Glen Rankin
Auctioneer Peter D'Amato
Silent Auction Manager Mike Ross
Raffle Manager John Pizzicara
Website Manager Albert Huntington
Website: http://www.bacps.org
Mailing address: BACPS, 825 Bennington Street, Manteca, CA 95336
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Please send articles or comments to the editior, Greg Lum.
If you wish to be added or removed from the
distribution list, please send a message to Bill Weaver.
This newsletter is formatted for 10 point courier font.