|
BACPS | Newsletter |
| Fall 2010 |
by Geoff Wong
Date: Saturday, January 15, 2011
Time: Noon-4:00 p.m.
Place: San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers, Golden Gate Park
Note that this is a different location than our regular meeting spot at the UC Botanical Garden
Program: "Genlisea's Secrets Come Out of the Closet"
Speaker: Fernando Rivadavia
At our next meeting, BACPS member and intrepid explorer Fernando Rivadavia will reveal the mysteries of Genlisea. Not only will Fernando bring us up to date on the botany and ecology of this most unusual genus, but he is also known for his exciting adventure stories (remember the machete...).
"The genus Genlisea currently comprises 22 annual and perennial species. Several new taxa await publication and will bring the total to over 30 species. Genlisea was until recently the most understudied genus of carnivorous plants, in large part as a result of their distribution in often remote and poorly explored regions of sub-Saharan Africa and tropical America. Starting in the 1990's, a boom occurred in the amount of field research done with Genlisea, both in Africa and South America. This resulted in the introduction to cultivation of numerous species which were either new to science or which were previously only known (to the few who cared) as line drawings in dusty old botanical journals, where species were sometimes described based on a single known herbarium collection. The popularization of Genlisea ex-situ was the fuel that ignited a frenzy of exciting scientific publications, such as the long-awaited proof of carnivory in Genlisea, as well as further insights into its complex trapping mechanism (although this has not been completely elucidated yet). One of the biggest surprises was the discovery in 2006 that some Genlisea species have ultra-small genomes, the smallest known among angiosperms. More recently, in 2009 G. aurea was the first carnivorous plant to undergo whole-genome sequencing, using the latest second generation DNA sequencing technology. And finally, 2010 has seen the publication of the first comprehensive molecular phylogeny of the genus Genlisea, elucidating the relationships between most of the known species in the two subgenera. Further studies to be published soon on chromosome numbers and genome sizes across the genus Genlisea will dive deeper into the complexities of this incredibly fast-evolving, and increasingly popular, carnivore."
Please bring plants for the show and tell table. Donations are gratefully appreciated for the raffle and auction, which are our major fundraisers. Members are also welcome to bring plants to sell or auction. (A portion of the proceeds (10%) will be collected as part of our fundraising.)
Attendees are encouraged to bring a snack or drink to share. As a token of our appreciation, donors will receive a free raffle ticket.
For directions to the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers, visit their website at
www.conservatoryofflowers.org. For parking, click on
the map on the right for directions to lesser-known spots close to the Conservatory where free
street parking is usually available. Enter through the side gate on the east side of the Conservatory
(on the right as you face the entrance). The meeting room is directly in front of the gate.
The Conservatory of Flowers has generously offered their meeting room for our winter meeting. The regular admission fee will be waived for BACPS attendees. Feel free to arrive early and enjoy the magnificent greenhouses, extensive tropical plant displays, and special model train exhibit.
by Jenny Siders
DATE: October 30, 2010
LOCATION: UC Botanical Garden, Berkeley
ATTENDANCE: ~50
Bill opened the meeting asking for volunteers to serve as officers. Nobody expressed an interest so the same officers will continue this year.
Stephen announced that BACPS has a Facebook page and asked people who are on Facebook to friend us.
Tony went to the LA Carnivorous Plant Society and said they are bidding to be the location for the 2012 International Carnivorous Plant Society meeting. Its a great meeting to go to, especially if it's within driving distance.
BACPS has over 800 members. Our next meeting will be at the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers on January 15, 2011. Program: "Genlisea's Secrets Come Out of the Closet." Speaker: Fernando Rivadavia. Our show will be June 25th in Oakland and the summer potluck will be July 23rd at California Carnivores. The April 16th meeting date is set but we are still unsure of a location. It could be here at the UC Botanical Garden, or some people have suggested having a meeting in the South Bay. We would like someone to volunteer to be a Meeting Scheduler and find places for BACPS to meet. Perferably the location would be free but we can pay a small fee.
February 2012 will be the 20th Anniversary of BACPS, and it would be nice to plan something for the occasion.
Geoff got up and announced the speakers for the upcoming meetings. Fernando Rivadavia will be speaking at the January meeting in S.F. Drew Martinez, Arthur Yin, and Gina Morimoto will be speaking on a trip to Sumatra. At the summer meeting at California Carnivores, Paul Zahl's daughter, Eda Kristen Zahl, who as a little girl appeared in several of the photos that accompanied her father's National Geographic articles on CP in the 60's, will be talking about her father's work and her own.
Tanya Renner of UC Berkeley
Dangerously Beautiful: Carnivorous Plant Glands and their Digestive Enzymes
Tanya Renner is an evolutionary biologist studying how carnivorous plant species change over time.
Tanya first talked about the features that make a plant carnivorous and how they differ from plants that are not considered to be carnivores. Carnivorous plants are angiosperms (flowering plants) that attract and capture insects, make use of photosynthesis, and have enzymatic activity and nutrient acquisition. One large difference between carnivorous and non-carnivorous plants is how nutrients are acquired:
Five different groups (orders) of Carnivorous Plants
Carnivorous plants of the Caryophyllales display many types of glands utilized in plant carnivory. These glands can either be sessile, stalked, or pitted.
In the 1800s, Charles Darwin first proposed the carnivorous habit of Drosera rotundifolia in his
writings to his dear friend Joseph Hooker. To J. Hooker, Darwin described his experiments on the enzymes
Drosera produced by recording his careful studies and observations. After sixteen years of research
on Drosera, Darwin published Insectivorous Plants in 1875, full of supporting evidence for plant
carnivory. Even with such a publication, most people still considered plant carnivory to be rubbish.
It wasn't until the 1970s (100 years later!) that scientists started to seriously look at carnivorous
plants again and investigate the enzymes produced within the trap.
A variety of different enzymes are produced by carnivorous plants in the order Caryophyllales. Tanya's dissertation project focuses on a carnivorous plant enzyme known as chitinase. Two types of chitinase are known to be produced by plants: those that break down fungi to protect the plant and a second class which breaks down the exoskeletons of insects. The first type is found in non-carnivorous plants and carnivorous plants, while the second is found exclusively in carnivorous plants. Tanya's research involves DNA extraction from various carnivorous plants from the order Caryophyllales, comparing the genetic code of chitinases to determine which plants are more closely related, and to discover more about the evolution of the chitinase enzyme. Most of the plant tissue Tanya has acquired has been from the collections at UC Berkeley, California Carnivores, University of Würzburg, Bogor Botanical Gardens, and the Missouri Botanical Garden.
Show and tell started at 2:35. The highlight of show and tell was actually not a plant but a jar of cockroaches
brought in by Katie Taylor. There were four different species, all rather large, and right on cue a
Madagascar Hissing Cockroach molted for us.
Lois brought in a Nepenthes × Peter D'Amato × maxima and a Utricularia quelchii whose identity was questionable -- she was hoping to get it identified correctly.
Mathew Byers also brought in a Nepenthes with a young offshoot.
The raffle occurred at 2:40, and there were no auction plants at this meeting.
by Erika Frank
Share your love of plants with Conservatory visitors! The seven-session training program will be held 2:00-5:00 on Wednesdays from February 16 to March 30. Trainees can choose to be Jungle Guides or Docents. Jungle Guides lead tours for elementary school children that cover the basics of plant adaptations. Docents lead tours for adults to educate visitors about the Conservatory's collection of tropical plants. For more information, contact Erika Frank, the Director of Volunteer Services, at (415) 637-4326 or efrank@sfcof.org.
A flyer can be downloaded here.
by Jeanne Marie Acceturo, Public Programs Coordinator, Jepson Herbarium
"Plants that Hunt: Carnivorous Plants and the Deeds They Do!"
February 26, 2011
Instructor: Barry Rice
Location: UC Berkeley
Our workshop will review the various genera of carnivorous plants, the methods they use to "forage," and where they live. It will focus on species in the U.S., and in particular the species in California. We will also discuss some of the new fields of research in carnivorous plants, which are many. In addition to classroom discussions, we will have carnivorous plants on hand for dissections, including forensic explorations of their digestive chambers. We will also visit the collections at the UC Botanical Garden.
Advance registration is required. More information is available online at: ucjeps.berkeley.edu/workshops/2011/index.html
by Joe Mazrimas
Please note, we couldn't get June 18 for our show but instead have June 25, 2011.
by Tony Gridley
Except for the tiny purple helicopter that patrolled the meeting room like a dragonfly and sometimes
crashed into the Sarracenia, and the number and variety of lockpicks on the table, and of course
all the corks and strings that were props for some mind-boggling magic tricks, the most interesting thing about
the December 18 Los Angeles Carnivorous Plant Society meeting down in Alhambra was the food,
for this was their annual holiday potluck. There was an entire turkey dinner, plus freshly
prepared spring rolls, several dessert dishes,
dim sum, and who knows what besides. My favorite dish was chicken in a wonderfully spicy green chile sauce.
I myself brought New Orleans Bread Pudding with Lemon Sauce and Chantilly Cream from Chef Paul
Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen, an old potluck standby that always goes over well.
Fellow BACPS member Christina Palmer and I had decided to attend the LACPS potluck, as she was going in that direction for the holidays anyway. We drove down the day before and spent Friday afternoon shopping on -- where else? -- Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. Actually, we were looking for a specific place that sells really expensive chocolate, and the only person who knew where it was worked at the concierge desk at the Beverly-Wilshire Hotel, which incidentally is an unbelievably great place for people-watching as well as a sure-fire source of information.
For the meeting on Saturday, Tom had prepared a presentation on his visit to Osgood Swamp near Lake Tahoe, but we never got around to it. The meeting topic was basically getting together a proposal to host the 2012 ICPS conference, and after the discussion was over everyone went back to the lockpicking class or eating or individual discussions or further subdividing the plants I brought so that everyone could have a piece. This happened last time as well: I brought 7-8 plants -- pings and unusual utrics -- to give away. When folks get plants at the BACPS, whether from vendors or via the raffle table, they pretty much take them home intact, but this is not so at the LACPS. A small plug of, say, the pink-flowered form of Utricularia blanchetii is subdivided and subdivided until everyone who wants a piece gets their very own few square millimeters of plant material. With pings, leaves are pulled, knives appear, and atrocities are committed upon the plants, but that is the way of these people, and I try not to judge.
After four or five hours, we had to vacate the meeting room, and about seven of us decided to run around Chinatown together, continuing various discussions and looking at swords and buying really nice tea and eventually having dinner at the Empress Pavilion. Amy and Nathan invited Christina and me to spend the night at their place up near Oxnard, which if you don't know, is quite a long way from Alhambra or even Chinatown, but we were happy to make the trek and accept their very generous offer.
Christina was given a bed in the room with the piano and organ and computer equipment, while space was found for me in the library, where there are fossils and fascinating pieces of pyrite and some chainmail and crystal balls and many more things it would take months to explore. After breakfast the next morning, even though it was pouring rain, we got to spend some time with the emus in the backyard. Delightful creatures, emus.
The LACPS is cool, and I can't wait to go again.
by Joe Mazrimas
| BACPS TREASURY REPORT October 30, 2010 | |||
| ASSETS | DEBIT | BALANCE | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raffle | $91.00 | ||
| Show refund | $300.00 | ||
| Sellers | $100.00 | ||
| TOTAL | $491.00 | ||
| Supplies | $36.42 | ||
| Oakland show | $675.00 | ||
| UC FUND | $50.00 | ||
| TOTAL | $761.42 | ||
| Current Balance (10-30-2010) | ($270.42) | ||
| Previous Balance (7-31-2010) | $6933.72 | ||
| TOTAL | $6663.30 |
Annual UC fund from Sellers for 2010 sent in is $204.00
January 15, 2011: Winter Meeting. Location: San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers, Meeting Room.
Program: "Genlisea's Secrets Come Out of the Closet." Speaker: Fernando Rivadavia.
April 16, 2011: Spring Meeting. Program: "CP of Sumatra and Borneo." Speakers: Drew Martinez, Gina Morimoto, and Arthur Yin.
(Location: TBD)
June 25, 2011: Annual Show and Sale, Lakeside Park Garden Center, Oakland.
July 23, 2011: Potluck and presentation, California Carnivores, Sebastopol.
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.
