Cambodian scrubland taxa incl. Utricularia delphinioides

[Stairs]

Continuing on from our research into Nepenthes thorelii, François and I have since had the chance to visit various sites in the southwest of Cambodia, most of which are of a rather particular type; the upland 'veals' consist of very thin lateritic substratum overlying sandstone slabs. As such, the surrounding forests end to give way to Melaleuca scrub land and plenty of carnivores. We've come across 9 species of Utricularia, the two commonest tropical Drosera and, of course, Nepenthes. Below are a couple of snaps to illustrate some of what we saw:

Nepenthes kampotiana.

Nepenthes kampotiana with Drosera burmanii.

Drosera indica habitat with underlying sandstone. Green and red forms were found alongside one another in some habitats.

Drosera burmanii growing on sand and rock respectively:

Lithophytic orchid species

Utricularia odorata

Alongside another, rather common taxon:

And last, but not least, the spectacular Utricularia delphinioides:

Edited August 15, 2011 by Stairs

[Fernando Rivadavia]

Cool, thanks!!!! :) Any more Utric pics???

F

[numpty]

Lovely pics ... more than just "snaps"! Good luck for the rest of the trip.

[TheInactiveMoth]

Wow! That last utric is something special!

[rsivertsen]

What Utric species was growing submerged with the D. indica (above)?

[Stairs]

Thank you, gents.

Fernando, I was fairly remiss I'm afraid, just these of U. minutissima and a tiny yellow species smaller than U. minutissima:

Taxa we saw included U. delphinioides, U. subulata, U. aurea, U. uliginosa, U. odorata, U. minutissima, U. caerulea, one whose name escapes me (am shattered, apologies), and an unidentified submerged terrestrial. Richard, that was probably U. subulata. The Utrics were everywhere.

Alastair.

Edited August 15, 2011 by Stairs

[Andreas Fleischmann]

Hello Alastair,

Hello Francois,

Thanks for sharing these beautiful photos (and thanks for pointing out this thread to me).

The "rather common" Utricularia with the clustered flowers in the first batch of photos is U. caerulea.

Your "U. minutissima" actually shows the very closely related U. hirta (note the hairy scapes), and the small yellow-flowered one is U. bifida.

All the best,

Andreas

[Stairs]

Thank you, Schatz; I knew you'd come through.

Bis bald,

Alastair.

[rsivertsen]

U. subulata is one of the most ubiquitous species in this part of the world too, I have found it all over the NJ Pine Barrens, all the way north to the mountainous floating sphagnum bogs of Orange County, New York, both yellow flowering form and the more commonly observed cleistogamous forms. - Rich

[christerb]

Beautiful plants! Nice seeing in-situ photos of N. kampotiana, especially from a population on the cambodian side.

I wonder if that litophytic orchid might be Doritis pulcherrima.

Regards,

Christer

[Miloslav Macháček]

Spectacular pictures! I like the colour of U.delphinoides flowers a lot! Thanks for sharing!

[Martin Hingst]

Very nice pics and beautiful species, Alastair! Esp. those delphinioides. I think there are bigger forms of these species e.g. in India or elsewhere, but with much less vibrant colours!

Thanks for sharing

Martin

[jimscott]

Beautiful pictures!

[Carlos Rohrbacher]

Utricularia delphinioides is very beautiful, D. indica too.

Thanks for sharing.

[manders]

I think the orchid is Doritis (phaelenopsis) pulcherrima, very nice photos!

[Stairs]

Hi Manders; it is indeed Doritis pulcherrima; I'm afraid I never got round to updating the post.

Thank you,

Alastair.