BACPS	Newsletter
	Summer 2007

In This Issue

	Next Meeting: November 17, 2007
	Show Time
	BACPS Annual Show and Sale
	The Winners
	CHOMP! Volunteers
	Treasurer's Report
	Odds and Ends
	Summer Photos
	Upcoming Events

Next Meeting: November 17, 2007

by Stephen Davis

Location: UC Botanical Garden, Berkeley
Program: Carnivores in Tissue Culture
Time:12:00-4:00 p.m.

A fun and interesting way to get hard-to-grow plants started, or make many copies of one outstanding plant, tissue culture is not as difficult as it sounds. There are even "kitchen culture" kits available. David Conner of Conner's Carnivores, breeder of the huge B-52 Venus flytrap, will take us through the steps of tissue culture at home and at the professional level.

Auction

Bring in plants to auction and raise money for the Society! The shows are expensive, and the club needs to replace our projector! Arrive with plenty of cash as it's usually a lot of fun! We are expecting the following at the raffle/auction: Pinguicula laueana, Nepenthes × briggsiana 'Peter D'Amato,' N. spathulata, N. alata, N. ventricosa, and many others. The auction will be after our club business and before our speaker. Don't be late.

New Officers

It is our time to elect new officers! The position of President is open, as Stephen Davis will not allow himself to be reelected! We need a new leader! This position is a lot of fun and not horribly demanding on time. You will have lots of help.

Online Forum Help Needed

Several people expressed an interest in helping to put together the online forum for BACPS members to share information and communicate. However, no one has contacted me since. It is mostly complete, but we need someone to help clean it up, put logos in, and make sure the settings work correctly. It's a pretty-easy-to-use system, but it needs someone who can spend some time on it. Please contact Stephen Davis if you can spare the time.

Show Time

by Ron LaPedis

This year's BACPS Annual Show and Sale took place under threatening skies on the basketball court of St. Anne's church in San Francisco's Sunset district. A gaggle of volunteers led by our own Stephen Davis made the show a rousing success. Visitors ranged from toddlers to retirees and included a family that took the train from Stockton so that their 13-year-old son could score some plants to add to his already impressive window garden -- you might even recognize one or two plants from the show proudly sitting here.

Two PhD students from UC Berkeley, one concentrating on our favorite kind of plant, and the other doing research on non-photosynthetic plants, were among a handful of sellers of plants-that-must-be-purchased. Conner's Carnivores was featuring their B-52 clone, which grows traps up to 2" along with another clone with no red pigment even under the strongest lights. Since my Red Dragons are black from the sunlight that they get, I plan to test this out.

There were so many plants on the raffle table that winners took home multiples and even traded babies from their pots. Some very good deals were had during the auction, including a $50 Nepenthes going for less than half the price. An amazingly affordable Heliamphora was also purchased.

BACPS Annual Show and Sale

by Stephen Davis

We arrived early and in the rain. This was our fifth consecutive year after Geoff Wong resurrected this event five years ago at California Carnivores. This year the show was at a new venue in San Francisco that was a mere mile from "CHOMP!", the carnivorous plant exhibit at the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park. Since we are old hands at this now, setup went quickly and efficiently in spite of the new digs. People brought in their plants and left for a walk in the park or to find a cup of java in one of the nearby coffee houses, a luxury we have not had in previous years.

Every year has new stars. New growers come in with new plants and keep the show exciting and fresh, no matter how many times you have gone. The weather was perfect this summer, and the Sarracenia were among the best we have had. The Nepenthes were, as always, fantastic, and it was nice to see such a perfect specimen win first place. I enjoyed listening to the people in animated discussions on how their favorite plant should have won. Quite a few of them were ribbon-worthy. Although there were not a lot of Utricularia at the show, they were phenomenal, and Tony Gridley brought in a Utricularia jamesoniana in bloom. This plant is so rare that there may only be a couple in cultivation in the world, and if you saw it in bloom that day, you are one of a very lucky few to have ever seen one. We did miss Dominic's pings this year. Among my favorites, the Drosera, there were several I had seen only in pictures, and Michael's winning Drosera parodoxa was something I didn't know was possible.

Considering that it rained, we had a very good turnout. Lots of very happy faces and first-time meetings with people that have only spoken in carnivorous plant chat rooms and listserves. One woman bought 20 plants for her outdoor bog gardens she hoped to have set up in time for a big garden tour she was hosting in the coming weeks. So many people had fun stories to tell and experiences to share. I noticed David Conner having a great time letting the kids feed his "B-52" Venus flytraps. I think I noticed that people hung out and socialized more than at any other show we have held. Lots of parents with their kids, college students and retirees. It's always a great mix of people at the show and our meetings.

I want to thank Christina Palmer for doing such a great job of organizing and inputting the plant entries, and Tony for his supporting roll in that task. Paul Bourbin was our light-and-sound man, bringing his sound system and replacing the high-intensity lights precariously suspended 20 feet above the hard gym floor. Judith Finn did a super job of organizing the judges, Paul Bourbin (Paul was very busy!) and Christina Palmer. We can all thank Doris Quick for scouting the site and co-ordinating the setup. This was a huge job that took several on-site visits. Robert Co did the photography this year, which is a significant undertaking both during and after the show. Robert's complete photo gallery of this year's show can be seen at www.bacps.org/show07/bacps2007.html. Michael Drabinsky and his mom, Candice, managed the raffle and helped with the setup, while Bill Weaver auctioned off some fine specimens to excited buyers. There were at least another dozen people, including my parents, who braved the rain and joined the fun as we solved last minute crises like how to protect inkjet-printed signs from the rain. A special thanks to my wife, who spent our 17th anniversary helping me sell plants and talking to people about how to grow Drosera capensis. If you have never volunteered to help out, you should. It's a memorable day.

A special congratulations to all our winners is in order. Geoff Wong's perfectly grown Sarracenia flava won best of show for the second year in a row, and I am sure it has stimulated the competitive juices in a few people to outdo him next year!

Now that it's over, we are off to planning our next show. Every year it gets better, but the sooner we start, the better and easier it is. Can you think of something that we should do to make the show more professional or, more importantly, more fun and educational? Can you help out? We need a new chairman and assistants. As always, we need a PR person and someone who is an artist for a new poster or ad. Don't wait until the last minute to volunteer. Talk to us now.

What did you think about the show this year? Did you like the new location or did you prefer the old one? We want your feedback. Please email me at stephenwd@sbcglobal.net.

The Winners

CHOMP! Volunteers

by Judith Finn

Because of a lack of a car this summer, I did not start volunteering until October. Hopefully I will be a weekly fixture until it ends in November.

It is a very fun experience, and I think it is good exposure for BACPS. I wear my BACPS t-shirt with the SF Conservatory apron and hang out for 3 hours in the left wing that is designated for special exhibits. My job is to talk to the visitors as they walk around the displays and try to keep (usually adults) from triggering the Venus flytraps.

People were really excited about the plants. Everyone was aware of the existence of VFT, but the other carnivorous plants opened a whole new world to most of the viewers. The show consists of a large display of various carnivorous plant species with an impressive display of Sarracenia on the ridge of a mound. Below were pings, VFT, and sundews. At the base was a skirt of Peperomia, which nicely showed off small specimens of Nepenthes. In addition there were several poles on which plants with different trapping mechanisms were displayed. These all were accompanied by very informative signage.

In one corner a video played great close up views of the different plants catching and digesting their prey. The video seemed to appeal to teenagers the most. They would patiently view the whole program giggling and gasping the whole time. On the other side of the room is a table filled with plants for people to touch and cut open traps filled with the carcases of insects. There are also two giant models of a VFT and a Heliamphora that shows their trapping mechanisms. These were supposed to be interactive for the kids, but, after fixing broken parts on a daily basis, they are now pushed to the wall and surrounded by plants to keep the children off.

The plants have been kept in wonderful condition by a fabulous mist fog system that is triggered every time the humidity falls in the room. I was impressed with the quality and the array of fairly rare plants that people have lent to the show. I have told a lot of people about our organization, so hopefully we will get more newcomers to our club.

Hopefully the various people who helped put on the show and donated their wonderful plants will write about their great contribution.

Treasurer's Report

by Joe Mazrimas

I have to pass on the treasurer's report since I don't have a handle on how much money was taken in over the last two meetings. I will wait until after the November meeting to catch up to date.

Odds and Ends

Little Shop of Horrors Playwright Dies

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-griffith3oct03,1,3019663.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california

CP Game

http://www.nitrome.com/games/feedme/

Summer Photos

by Tony Gridley

• Even though we had no Spring Newsletter, I don't want my photo of Ivan Snyder speaking at our June meeting to go to waste.
• Doris Quick's neighbor, Mary Lou Sumberg, sent her a photo of Sarracenia purpurea in the wild.
• I got down on my hands and knees on a boardwalk trail, tried to hold very still, and managed to photograph some Drosera rotundifolia at the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve on Vancouver Island in August.
• Tanya Renner sent some lovely photos she took at the Darlingtonia Wayside in Florence, Oregon, in July.

Upcoming Events

May 4 - November 4, 2007: CHOMP! at the Conservatory of Flowers, San Francisco
November 17, 2007: BACPS Fall Meeting, UC Botanical Garden, Berkeley
January 26, 2008: BACPS Winter Meeting, UC Botanical Garden, Berkeley

Photo Credits

Geoff Wong's prize-winning Sarracenia flava photographed through a teleidoscope -- Janet Foster; window garden -- Chance Helmuth; four show plants at end of Winners list -- Katie Lea; CHOMP! photos -- Dominic Diaz; Sarracenia purpurea in the wild -- Mary Lou Sumberg; Darlingtonia Wayside -- Tanya Renner; all other photos -- Tony Gridley.

The BACPS Newsletter is a quarterly publication produced by the Bay Area Carnivorous Plant Society. Please send newsletter submissions to Tony Gridley (tgridley@comcast.net). For more information on membership, subscriptions, or events, please visit our website: www.bacps.org.