by Stephen Davis

by Judith Finn

Tony asked me about the mysterious $1,400 U.C. Botanical Garden fund that has been on the budget reports for the Bay Area Carnivorous Plant Society forever. Having been a member of the Society for over 25 years, I forget that new people don't automatically know the history of everything.

An embarrassingly long time ago (maybe 10-15 years) I decided that the display cage in the Fern/Carnivorous Plant House was rotting and we should replace it. I proceeded to root a bunch of Nepenthes cuttings from our collection and subsequently sold them to the club members. Since Nepenthes were not readily available, I was able to get $1,400.

In 2000, David Gray gave us a donation to speed up the process of developing the cage. We wanted big sliding glass doors, but the subcontractors always turned in such high bids because of the University's safety requirements for earthquakes, etc. The greenhouse supports are such that adequate bracing for the heavy glass panels was the element that was making the project more expensive. If you put too much money into a rehab, then you also have to make the greenhouse handicap-accessible. This would mean the door would have to be placed on the opposite wall because of the steep grade--very expensive. We kept dropping the project, as our building maintenance person had other priorities.

Years pass, and five directors later we are now under a very energetic new director, Paul Licht, who has been with us a little over two years. He has been very good at picking up projects that have been sitting around for years and pushing them through. To get the extra funding that we needed for the carnivorous plant cage, Dr. Licht came up with the idea of extending the cage to include the back wall of the Fern/Carnivorous Plant House. He plans to make this into an orchid display. Visitors are constantly asking about the orchids that used to be in the now Arid House, so this would solve the problem of making the flowering orchids available to the public. The Orchid Society has generously given us the additional funds, our building maintenance man, Gerald Ford, has made a design, and we have purchased the large glass panels.

Gerald has returned this week from being off with a disability and is now purchasing the other building materials, and the demolition of the old cage should start this week. Who knows, our plants may have a new home by Christmas! Hopefully at our first 2006 meeting we can celebrate, and I can get some ideas from the members about how best to display our insect-eating friends.