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BACPS | Newsletter |
| Spring 2008 |
| BACPS Summer Meeting: June 28, 2008 |
| April Meeting Minutes | |
| BACPS at Bug Day | |
| Treasurer's Report | |
| For Sale | |
| Spring Photos | |
| Upcoming Events | |
by Geoff Wong
Date and Time: Saturday, June 28, 2008, 12 noon to 4 p.m.
Location: California Carnivores,
2833 Old Gravenstein Highway South, Sebastopol, California 95472, (707) 824-0433
Program: Potluck lunch, Peter D'Amato speaking on "Variation in Sarracenia Hybrids",
and Tom Kahl speaking on "Nepenthes of Thailand"
Dig out your favorite recipe, your camera, and checkbook. The next BACPS meeting will be held on Saturday, June 28, at California Carnivores. Originally the plan was to combine the summer meeting with the BACPS Show in August. We subsequently decided that it would be more fun to have a regular meeting. Peter D'Amato, author of the best seller The Savage Garden and proprietor of California Carnivores, has graciously offered his nursery as a meeting venue and expects there to be many new things for people to see.
The meeting will start off at noon with a potluck luncheon. Each person is asked to bring a dish to share. BACPS will provide chips, drinks, plates, cups, napkins, and utensils.
Following the potluck, the program will feature two talks. Peter will discuss the
incredible variation one observes with Sarracenia hybrids. He will show us the
results of one of his crosses, S. leucophylla 'Red and White' × S. minor
'Okee Giant'. You'd never guess that some of the offspring are related. Peter also
will go over techniques for pollinating and tagging flowers.
We are excited to host a second talk given by Tom Kahl from Seattle, who will tell us about the Nepenthes of Thailand and his many trips there. He plans to bring photos, dried specimens, and other items to illustrate his presentation.
As usual, there will be a show and tell table, raffle, and auction. If you've been dividing plants, please bring any spares for our fundraisers.
Mark your calendar. Don't miss this fun and informative event. It will be your chance to see the nursery and meet new and old CP friends. As an added incentive, Peter is offering a 15% discount for ICPS/BACPS members.
Directions from the Bay Area: Take Hwy 101 north to the Cotati/Hwy 116 West exit. Head west on Hwy 116 towards Sebastopol for six miles. Turn right on Old Gravenstein Hwy at the Antique Society building. California Carnivores is one and a half blocks on the left. For more information, visit the web site at www.californiacarnivores.com.
by Judith Finn
April 5, 2008
Attendance: ~35 people
Bill Weaver, our President, greeted new members. Even though the attendance
was about the same as our average meeting, we had several new faces brought
in by our display at the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show. Our booth generated
a lot of interest, and the children got an extra treat because of a donation
of 600-700 small Venus flytrap seedlings.
Bug Day will be held on April 26 at the Randall Museum, and our club will participate in the educational experience.
There will also be a new opportunity to reach out to the public. It is called Dirt Day and will be held at the Alden Lane Nursery in Livermore on May 31, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Joe Mazrimas is encouraging donations of Venus flytraps and Drosera capensis for the kids to pot up.
August 16 at Lakeside Garden Center at Lake Merritt is set for our big annual BACPS show. The vendors and people displaying the plants will set up at 9:00 a.m. and tear down at 5:00 p.m. The show will be open to the public from 10:30 to 4:00. Stephen Davis encouraged us all to get our best plants prepared for exhibit. Remember that each category gets judged separately, and often there are only one or two plants in a category, so be bold and decide to join in this year's show. Stephen also said that we need to make a new poster for outside the building to lure people in from the park, and we need signage with fun facts about the plants.
Bill asked everyone for patience with e-mail problems with the website. It
is new and there are a few bugs to work out.
Larry Logoteta told us that he is preplanning next year's show to be held on the third week in June of 2009.
Tony Gridley also informed us that the Monterey Public Library would like to have a carnivorous plant program as part of its summer reading program ("Catch the Reading Bug").
Bill reminded all the new people attending our meeting that they will get a free plant.
Joe and Larry went to the southeastern United States to attend the First International Carnivorous Plant Society Symposium. In May of 1997, along with legendary carnivorous plant author and grower Don Schnell, they saw 14 bogs in Alabama, Mississippi, and the panhandle of Florida. It was early enough that the heat and humidity were at comfortable levels.
They began on May 12 in Citronelle, Alabama, where they spotted Drosera filiformis ssp. tracyi and Pinguicula lutea, Sarracenia psittacina and Sarracenia alata. This area has subsequently been drained by a lumber company that wanted to use the area for growing trees.
Next was Sandy Bog Flat, which has 500 acres containing Drosera capensis, Utricularia cornuta, Sarracenia leucophylla × S. alata, Drosera filiformis ssp. tracyi, Sarracinia psittacina, and a large field of S. leucophylla surrounded by large ant mounds. The drainage ditches were filled with Sarracenia alata.
At Fruitvale, Alabama, they saw Sarracenia rubra ssp. wherryi
along the road and Drosera capillaris. In Chatham, Alabama, they saw in the
woods many S. leucophylla. The plants received a lot of light even with all
the accompaning shrubs and trees. In Ocean Springs, they saw many S.
psittacina, S. alata, and their hybrids. At Alabama's border they
encountered S. alata, S. purpurea hybrids and beautiful all-red S. alata.
They got to see thousands of these beautiful hybrids buried in hundreds of
acres of grass. In a pine area with very sandy soil they saw S.
psittacina in a clump of about 50 plants and S. alata × S leucophylla with
very bright lids and again all-red S. alata.
At the Red Rock Oil Refinery they saw more S. alata × S. purpurea hybrids,
S. leucophylla, and S. purpurea.
On May 13, the group went to Milton, Florida, to a bog containing 2000 acres filled with Sarracenia flava. The ditches next to the road were filled with water and S. leucophylla. There were crosses between S. flava and S. leucophylla all growing in very sandy soils. They spotted all-green and all-red S. flava, green-lidded, red-tubed S. leucophylla, and very red S. leucophylla. They were excited to see many beautiful S. flava 'Coppertop,' S. purpurea, and S. rubra. In addition to the Sarracenia they came across Drosera intermedia and D. filiformis ssp. tracyi. These were growing with the primitive Lycopodium.
In Florida they came across sites filled with yuccas and ventured into dense jungle growth. The men had to wear boots because of the very wet conditions. There were even some Pinguicula floating in free water. They saw Sarracenia rubra and thousands of Pinguicula that were 8" across in thick brush but still receiving very bright light. The humidity was about 60% and it was a comfortable 74 degrees.
The next location was a 90-acre lake with the rare Drosera filiformis ssp. filiformis. There was an all-red D. intermedia that grows year round with Utricularia cornuta exhibiting all yellow flowers which were one foot tall in white sandy soil. When the group walked around the lake they came across aquatic Utricularia resupinata. The temperature at this location was up to 83 degrees.
On March 14 off State Route 77 they arrived at a bog filled with grass
and pines, where they were treated to the sight of a rare Utricularia
floridana and a heavily veined S. flava.
At Sandy Creek in Panama City, Florida, they encountered three-foot-tall, red-tubed,
green-topped S. flava, very red S. psittacina, and thousands of Pinguicula
planifolia in a grassy area. The wet terrain made walking very treacherous.
It was very easy to fall into a one- to two-foot-deep hole.
In Florida they came across an area where the brush had been burnt,
revealing the carnivorous plants that were happily thriving even though they
had sustained some burnt foliage. Sarracenia flava with almost black pitchers and
yellow tops, S. psittacina, and yellow-green S. flava with deep red spots on
their throats. At another location the S. flava had deep purple throats
although very few had flowers. There were also some S. purpurea and S.
flava hybrids.
At Yahoo Bog, which is a protected area, there were more S. purpurea × S.
flava and about 600 specimens of Pinguicula ionantha. This area had also
recently been burnt.
On May 17, Joe, Larry, and Don joined the rest of the carnivorous plant enthusiasts at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. They had a memorable tour of the state-of-the-art Fuqua Conservatory filled with wonderful plants in pots and bogs. Many of the plants were from Brazil and Venezuela. The whole glasshouse is under an automatic fog system that keeps all the plants in great condition. Nepenthes hung in baskets from the glass walls, and outside there were artificial bogs and large pots filled with Pinguicula. The group was also escorted around the support glasshouses that contain hundreds of flats of seedling plants that will be re-introduced into the wild.
Joe and Larry ended their presentation by warning people that if they go on bog trips, they should never go alone because of the danger of falling into holes, running into brier patches, etc. They advised never to collect from the wild because it is inevitable that you will break a root, which leaves an entry way for pathogens that will subsequently kill the plant.
Sarracenia and Nepenthes.
Geoff Wong donated Nepenthes cuttings from his collection.
by Tony Gridley
Thanks once again to the Randall Museum for the opportunity to participate in Bug Day on April 26. I know it's supposed to be educational for the kids, but I end up learning so much every year. If we're invited back next time, I promise to bring many more Venus flytraps and brush up on the latest research about how they're able to do what they do. My favorite conversation this year was about VFTs and went something like this:
Kid: But they remember if something touched the trigger hairs a few seconds ago, so they must have brains.
Mom: They don't have brains.
Kid: So how can they remember what happened to them, then?
Mom: I don't know, but they don't have brains.
A few minutes later there was a similar conversation about VFTs and muscles.
We achieved an especially nice balance this year due to the different interests and growing conditions of the three volunteers. My own inclination is to bring a representative of each genus from among whatever will grow in my apartment, and my impatient Sarracenia are pretty much done flowering and well into pitcher production by late April.
Ron LaPedis's greenhouse in San Bruno seems to have lush Drosera, Nepenthes, and a wide variety of VFTs planted in bog-like tubs, and every year at Bug Day his sarrs are flowering when mine are through.
Commercial orchid grower Margaret Boomer ("Boomer's Orchid Ark") from Alameda is used to doing shows, and brought lots of great plants to sell, Drosera capensis and Utricularia sandersonii for kids to pot up and take away for free, and a nice variety of stuff to gawk at -- plus she was responsible for all the wonderful signage.
My first photo shows Margaret and Ron, plus a child getting slimed by my Drosera regia. The last two photos are of the booth for bug-eating people, not bug-eating plants.
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by Joe Mazrimas
| BACPS TREASURY REPORT April 5, 2008 | |||
| ASSETS | DEBIT | BALANCE | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cow Palace check | $250.00 | ||
| Auction | $127.00 | ||
| Sellers | $46.00 | ||
| Raffle | $164.00 | ||
| TOTAL | $587.00 | ||
| Oakland-East Bay Garden Club, INC. | $25.00 | ||
| Peat Moss | $13.00 | ||
| Perlite | $16.00 | ||
| TOTAL | $54.00 | ||
| Current Balance (04-05-08) | $533.00 | ||
| Previous Balance (01-26-08) | $2372.27 | ||
| TOTAL | $2905.27 |
by Doris Quick
I have three water lilies available for adoption: one Albert Greenberg, one Evelyn Randig, and one Blue Capensis. If you are interested, contact me by email and I will bring them to the June meeting at California Carnivores. I am asking a $10 donation to the club for each plant.
by Tony Gridley
Barry Rice offered the CP community some "nearly free" Utricularia humboldtii seeds last week, shipping and handling to be taken care of by Travis Wyman in Atlanta. I am grateful to both for this generous offer.
My stash arrived in the mail just as I was finishing this issue of the newsletter. I dumped the seeds in the sphagnum slurry in which I keep the rest of my U. humboldtii and then left my apartment. Four hours later I returned and took some photos.
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May 11, 2008: Barry Rice on "Interesting Insectivores" at
the University of California Botanical Garden, Berkeley,
from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
May 31, 2008: Dirt Day, Alden Lane Nursery, Livermore
June 28, 2008: BACPS Summer Meeting,
California Carnivores, Sebastopol
August 16, 2008: BACPS Annual Show and Sale, Lakeside Park Garden Center, Oakland
September 25-28, 2008: ICPS Conference, Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, Australia
November 15, 2008: Fall BACPS meeting,
University of California Botanical Garden, Berkeley
All 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.