28 replies to this topic

[Paulo Minatel]

Hi there!

As you may already have seen, Fernando did the announcement of the new species we have just published:  http://www.cpukforum...0&#entry307353.

Here the link to the summary of the article: http://www.mapress.c...p00029p040f.pdf

However, there are really few photos of this beautiful species on web, so I'll post some new photos so you can know Drosera quartzicola better!

This species was first discovered by Fernando in 1996, but only now it was formally published! I have to thank Fernando for letting me help him to describe and publish this amazing plant!  
Drosera quartzicola is closely related to D. chrysolepis, with which it eventually hybridizes. The main distinctive characteristics of this new species are the very short stem, the upper surface of the petiole without eglandular hairs, petiole and lamina with about the same width, the very short inflorescences, and the dense indumentum of small globular trichomes that you will see below.
This is a very rare species and it is considered as Critically Endangered.

The photos I'll show here were taken along the last few years, but I never had time to post. But now that the species have a name I decided to finally post them. The photos were taken at different times of the year and in different populations (only four populations are known, all VERY small) and show how this species reacts to the different seasons (basically the wet and the dry season).

Lets go to the photos!

Here you can have an idea of how big are the plants during the wet season:


The epithet "quartzicola" was chosen because this species grows on sandy soil with quartz gravel:




















Close of the leaves:


A very nice group:


A very red group:


A huge specimen:


The same plant, a year latter:


The flowering period of this species in concentrated in the wet season, between January to April. The scapes are very short, probably because of the very open habitats where this species grows, where a long inflorescence would easily broke with the constant wind:




The flowers don't have anything special when compared with the related species:


close

[Paulo Minatel]

Another flowering plant (until now I've only seen two open flowers of D. quartzicola):




close


A plant with a juvenile scape:


Plants with fruits:






During the dry season the plants may lose it's mucilage:






But some resistant plants maintain some active leaves, although much smaller than the ones produced during the wet season:




Some habitat photos:




And here some photos of the small globular trichomes that cover almost all the plant surfaces. We think that these trichomes are able to capture the humidity from the air, as the species that possess it (D. chrysolepis, D. camporupestris, D. graminifolia, D. schwackei, and D. quartzicola) are the ones that grow on extremely dry habitats when compared with most of the other Drosera species in Brazil. They would be very important mainly during the dry season, because even without any rain for many months it is common to see the formation of fog at night and early in the morning on the mountain tops where those species grows:


Here the trichomes on the lower leaf surface:


That's all! I hope you enjoy it!


All the Best,

[Fernando Rivadavia]

Great pics Paulo, thanks! ;)

I just wanted to add one of my favorite pics taken by Paulo showing the hygroscopic globular trichomes (called "TSG" trichomes in the paper) which possibly allow this and other species to survive in such dry habitats in Brazil, by capturing moisture from fog at night:




All the best,
Fernando Rivadavia

[christerb]

Thanks for posting the lovely photos! A very pretty looking species, and very fitting name as well.

Regards,

Christer

[jimscott]

Well done - especially the flower closeups!

[Daniel O.]

Many thanks for showing us these pictures.

It´s very interesting that this species does also have these trichomes like for example D. meristocaulis.
How big are the flowers and do there exist any hybrid pictures with D. chrysolepis?

Best regards,

Dani

Edited by Daniel O., 02 October 2011 - 01:40 AM.

[moof]

Beautiful photos! I hope this plant will be widely available in cultivation one day:)

Regards,
          Peter

[kisscool_38]

That's a real beauty. I definitely love the sundew species growing on the Serra do Cipo. Thanks for this fieldreport

Regards

Aymeric

[dudo klasovity]

Very exciting news! Phenomenal plant and great pictures! :-D

[Tonk]

I was in love with Drosera from South-America, but now, it's better than love. I hope this D. quartzicola will be in our collections soon !

[Paulo Minatel]

Hi there,


Thank you very much for the nice comments!    

Daniel - the biggest flower I found had 2 cm in diameter, while the smallest had about 1 cm. I have pictures of the hybrid, I'll upload some and post latter!

Ken - Of course yes!

It seems that D. quartzicola is a very hard to grow species. It produces really few seeds and is a very slow grower. But I hope it get commoner in cultivation soon.


All the Best,

[Sockhom]

Paulo,

Congratulations again to you and to Fernando for a great work!
The pictures of the plants during the dry season are impressive in their own way: the plants look almost dying!
Do you know if the relative Drosera chrysolepis behave in the same way at some point of the year? I have some cultivated plants of the latter species which look exactly like that at the moment. They were never like this before.
Thank you for your help.

All the best,

François.

[rsivertsen]

Fantastic! Great work guys! Well done! Any photos of the hybrids mentioned above?  - Rich

[Zlatokrt]

Hello Paulo, i wrote you a PM with something similar as Ken, did you read it please? I would like to ask you for a photo too...
Thank you
Adam

[Carlos Rohrbacher]

It's a great article ...   ... I like the pictures too.

Congratulations!

[meizwang]

spectacular-what a beautiful new species!

[Fernando Rivadavia]

See pics of the natural hybrid D.quartzicola X D.chrysolepis (scroll to the bottom of the thread):

http://www.plantasca...tzicola&start=0

[Paulo Minatel]

Hi there!

Here some new photos of this species taken by a botanist colleague from Brazil (incl. a plant with two open flowers at the same time):
http://www.plantsyst...a&rank=binomial

Worth checking out!


All the Best,

[Daniel O.]

Many thanks for this link Paulo.
Two open flowers are better than one.

Best regards,

Dani