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johnvdw

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  1. A small status update on the Ark of Life.: After the notaty work and the registration at the chamber of commerce, we now have a Dutch bank account opened . So next step is to ressurrect the website to enable to us to get the charity status
  2. If you use the czplants@Icloud e-mail you have better chance on a reply, Otherwise give them a phone call. It helped in my case at least. I placed an order but they were unable to deliver it. They asked whether they should return the money or that I wanted to order alternatives. I requested to return the money, but no response, In the end I ordered an alternative but they wanted me to pay for it. It took a few weeks, a lot of e-mails and a phone call but in the end everytning was settled.
  3. Time for a short update for this topic. My plants are doing very well this season, the new light set-up (LED's) will probably a role. I have some offspring (though no stolons like the typical D. eremaea), and the plants produced so far a lot of foliage: additional leaves (often an extra set of leaves per node) but also many, short, branches. But most important: I finally had flowers from D. aff. eremaea The flower (ca 2 cm across) looks quite different from the regular D. eremaea.....
  4. Aldrovanda vesiculosa is a rare carnivore in Europe. At a few places it has been (re)introduced in a pont near Bonn and in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands an Hungarian clone has been introduced in a natural area near Nieuwkoop aboout 9 (or is it seven) years ago. After the discovery rangers have tried to remove all Aldrovanda plants,apparently they did not fully succeed. It appears Aldrovanda is still doing well in this area and it might be expanding its range. It happens that the area is just over 20 km away from my home, and I have been searching for Aldrovanda several times without any luck untill yesterday. The ditch with Aldrovanda. In this ditch grows also Utricularia vulgaris and frogbit. U. vulgaris and Aldrovanda Aldrovanda is readily branching, a sign that the plants are healthy. At the shore Drosera rotundifolia was abundantly growing (since the reed was just cut, the Drosera did not look extremely nice. I hope you enjoyed the photo's!
  5. Hi all, I like to share some pictures of what is probably the least cultivated Drosera I grow (I think so since there are only a few photo's on the internet, and some of them show a somewhat different type of plant) and for sure it is the weirdest in my collection. I have received one or two tubers about 5 or 6 years ago, labelled as D. macrantha. This is how it starts: a roundish, white tuber (sometimes with some brown spots). If you look really carefully you can see that the surface is covered with small dimples (like a golf ball). It is usually one of the first tuberous species to appear in the season. First some sort of a rosette is formed and after that a scrambling stem emerges. First one leave per node, later often followed by a smaller lateral pair of leaves. The plant grows quite rapidly reaching a length max 50 cm in about 4 moths time. After that it more or less stops growing and is by far the first of my tuberous Drosera to retreat. Nothing really strange so far. But sometimes it doesn't stay with just a lateral pair of leaves, and groups of 4 to 5 leaves are formed The stem and the central petiole (mainly at the base) are covered with minute glands. Leaf with prey. The backside of these leaves are also covered with minute glands (though this season these glands seem to be absent, due to different growth conditions??). A view at the "rosette". If you look closely you can see some white "runners", it seems that small leaves emerge from it. Unfortunately the plants have not flowered so far (maybe I should use a kind of ferilizer). Sometimes an additional tuber is formed. John
  6. Glad to hear you all enjoy the photo's otf my Madagascar trip. @ DevonB: I had some doubt about the ID of the third D. madagascariensis too. I did go through quite some pictures, including the D. affinis hybrid. I did not see any D. affinis during my trip, and as far as I know it is not native to Madagascar. But I found several pics of D. madagascariensis that are quite similar to the plants from Madagascar, including the first picture of Andreas Fleischmann's post (http://www.cpukforum.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=17731) and http://www.westafricanplants.senckenberg.de/root/index.php?page_id=14&species=3240. For the Chameleon lovers a few examples: And a true beauty, unfortunately not in the wild: And a little bit more N. madagascariensis:
  7. But this was not all, close to our hotel, along a small river, there were a handfull of really big Nepenthes madagascariensis plants growing. Surprisingly lower pitchers seemed to be absent (maybe with the exeption for one seedling). Uppers were present in all different sizes. At least one pitcher was inhabited (by a tiny crabspider?): Some kilometers further, at a comparable site there was another stand of N. madagascariensis: I kept on searching for more N. madagascariensis though I did not succeed..... However I found some plants I did niot expect to find: N. masoalensis!!! Also at the second site N. masoalensis was present, this time no upper pitchters. However I found a picture of a N. masoalensis upper pitcher photographed at this site or very close to here. It could be quetioned whether these N. masoalensis plants are naturally occuring here, far from the Masoala peninsula. Especially the sign rises questionmarks, The sign is planted along a trail leading to a private park, so does this mean these N. masoalensis plants are planted here? I doubt so: most people will not directly recognize the difference between both Madagascar Nepenthes species. It is a really poor country and the Masoala peninsula is very hard to access, so that would be a lot of effort for something "not really spectaculair". This private park seems to be quite new while the plants are growing there for many years already, also along a part of the trail not leading to the park. At the second site the local guide told me that the N.masoalensis plants were truly growing naturally at that site.
  8. Recently I have from a 30 day round trip at the island of Madagascar, to enjoy the remaining nature and some stunning landscapes. The main interest was to see as many nice animals as possiblef I spotted about 17 different species of lemurs and a few other mammals. Next to that I saw ca 10 species of Chameleon together with some species of gecko, snake and frogs. Carnivorous plants were considered by me as a bonus on my trip. Also because it was probably not the best season to look for CP's since spring was just starting and in some areas it was about the end of the dry season. Nonetheless the bonus was not bad at all :-) The first species of carnivorous plant species I encountered was "surprisingly" Drosera madagascariensis. Some groups of nice plant were growing at a seapage at Ranomafana NP in the east. This parc is well known from its rainforest. Isalo NP, somewhat in the South/South West of the island, the environment is much drier and warmer than the previous parc. The surroundings of the parc reminded of the African savannah. Though in the parc their were several gorges with running water and also some seapages. Like in Ranomofana, also on these seapages D. madagascariensis was found, this time together with U. livida (for some reason my camera had some troubles with the light colored flowers). At a somewhat more sunny and more sandy site the U. livida were somewhat different: In another part of the parc I found some different sundews: Drosera natalensis Later on we travelled to the east of the island, to an area known as the Canal de Pangalanes. This is a chain of lakes close to the coast connected to each other by canals. At this site it did not take long before I found the first cp's overhere: the sandy shores of lake were rich on small terrestial Utricularia flowers. Mostly U. arenaria and in way lower numbers U. subulata. The U. arenaria was proved to be somewhat variable, sometimes first the flowers appeared and in a later stage followed by the leaves. In the end I found a tiny marshy area with a really nice form of D. madagascariensis:
  9. It has been a while ago that I visited mt Roraima, so some things I am not 100% sure anymore. But as far as I can see from my pictures it was not the exposure to sunlght that caused the color differences in U. quelchii. Remember that there is in general not too much cover, so most sites are quite exposed to the sunlight though a few of the grew just below the summit in low vegetation. The deepest red flower I found was growing in the valley of the cristals, so perhaps some minerals from the soil play a role in the coloration of the plants. Below is a photo of the most extensive site with U. quelchii, you can see that there seems to be quite some difference in coloration. I don't remember the temperature, but it was not uncomfortable so probably about 15C.
  10. Hi all, Last spring many of my hardy Pinguicula plants have flowered quite nicely: The first species that started to flower was P. longifolia ssp caussensis Next P. macroceras (I might have mixed it up with the nortensis subspecies, though it has been questioned whether P. macroceras ssp nortensis is a valid taxon) P. grandiflora (almost a weed in my collection): P. vulgaris f bicolor: P. balcanica (red form): Especially for the last species it was a bit of a surprise what flower would appear since this ping spotaniously appeared in the sphagnum that used to be the substrate for a VFT royal red. Most likely it is a P. vulgaris
  11. The Utricularia's have been photographed in KeoLadeo NP in Rajahstan, a nice place to see especially a lot of birds and also some mammals and reptiles. After that I have visited two tiger reserves in Madhya Pradesh where I spotted amongst others a tiger, four different deer species, wild boar, gaur, a leopard, wild dogs and jackals. John
  12. Hi, all thanks for your nice comments. Following some requests, a few more pictures of D. ultramafica. I found only a limited number of D. ultramafica, mainly growing at the trail. For some reason this picture is rotated..... And a close up of a flower.
  13. We spotted a few flowering orchids on our way to the summit, like this Spathoglottis And an, according to Alastair, not yet described terrestial orchid At some seapages there were a very limited number of Utricularia moniliformis flowering (unfortunately, the coloration on the photo is not completely accurate, it should be more pinkish). The shape of this Utric was somewhat variable. Getting higher on the mountain, the number of Nepenthes plants rapidly decreased. There were only a few of these with red foliage, none of them climbing. A stick insect at the second campsite: Close to the summit, partially hidden in between the shrubs: N. attenboroughii A kind of a weird slug creeping out of a pitcher At some more exposed sites near the summit Drosera ultramafica was growing And at last another stick insect, this one was walking near the summit Hope you enjoyed!!
  14. As promised, some of my photo's of the Nepenthes tour. Mount Victoria Soon after that we have started the three days hike to the summit of Mt Victoria (1700 m asl) we stumbled on the first Nepethes phillipinensis: And a lower pitcher After crossing the river numerous times we arrived at our campsite. Here were several nice colored N. phillipinensis plants:. In one of the N. phillipinensis lower pitchers I found a kind of maggot (or was it a puppae?) that almost imediatly dove down in the pitcher fluid after being disturbed, Unfortunately I was not able to photograph it (I was not able to get a shot of the interior of the pitcher due to its size). The N. philipinensis plants were frequently visited by ants:
  15. This U. inflexa shows several unusual features. This photo show a stalk with about 24 flowers, while Taylor in his monograph mentiones 12 as a maximum (the other photo's of U. inflexa that I have found on the net have a maximum of 10 flowers) And an other carnivore
  16. Thanks for your comments. Photo's of U. inflexa are very scarce despites the wide distribution of the species. Only a few photo's of U. inflexa, all from Western Africa, can be found the internet. Interestingly the appearance of these plants (especially the coloration, but also the length of the spur, see cp photofinder) is somewhat different from the plants that I have seen in India. U. inflexa is appears to be a variable species. @ theinactive moth: I did get some quite nice shots of a tiger . The leopard was less cooperative. John
  17. After enjoying the Nepenthes tour (see Alistair's topic, I will post some of my photo's later), it was time for something completely different. I went to India with the main focus on watching wildlife. With succes, since I did enjoy the thrill of seeing a tiger, a leopard, wild dogs and much more!! But of course I kept my eyes open for any CP's. In Bharatpur I found two different aquatic Utric's: U. aurea: a very widespread species, occuring from India to Japan and Australia The second Utric, is apparantly not U. inflexa but a white flowered form of U. stellaris. This form has an unusual high number of flowers (up to at least 24, while 15 is the maximum according to the description of the species). It was not really widespread in the park, but locally it was abundant, growing somewhat more exposed area compared to U, aurea. I hope you enjoyed!
  18. It is about one year ago that I climbed Mt Roraima. When I was looking again through my photo's I noticed that the flowers of U. quelchiii on this mountain did not only differ in color, but also strongly in shape (perhaps also in size). As hypotized earlier, hybridisation with U. campbelliana is a likely cause for this, although I have only seen U. campbelliana's during the cliimb, were U. quelchii was rare. At the top of the mountain U. quelchii was a relative common flower. The majority of the U. quelchii plants were baring just a single flower at their stalks though at least one plant was having two flowers and a young flower bud. I have put some of my U. quelchii photo's in a single frame for a good comparison.
  19. I have used my newly aquired USB camera to make some photo's of my climbing Drosera modesta plants. First a more of less normal leave (slightly damaged) However when a leave attaches it self to a surface (always with the surface of the leave pointing outwards) to climb the tentacles seem curl strongly. Also the red coloration from the tentacle tip seem to diffuse slightly into the tentacle. At last a shot showing the minute (ca 0.5 mm) tentacle at the stem and the petioles
  20. Some Utrics from the plateau: U. quelchii was very wide spread at the plateau There were also many small, mainly terristic, Utrics present: A weird U. pubescens Furthermore U. amethistyna was fairly abundant at the plateau. As you can see this is a very variable species, it might very well be that it will be split in different species And a very small form: A field of D. roraimae Some different shots: A scorpion And a "hyeana" Hope you enjoyed the pictures! John
  21. Just like Jonthan I recently returned, with many pictures, from Mt Roraima. I will share some of my pictures overhere. First some pictures from the Gran Sabana: Jasper creek Not far from San Francisco we visited a location near a waterfall with about 8 or 9 species of CP´s Amongst them this nie Utric: Utricularia hispida "white" The small U. nana (almost without flower stalk) At the same location there were also several different sundews growing: D. felix Close to basecamp the spectulair U.humboldtii (the single flower that I have seen) Close to the U. humboldtiii, I found a nice clump of D. roraimae One of the characteristic plants of Mr Roraima is of course H. nutans (with Kukenan tepui at the background) At the plateau of Mt. Roraima at least three different Genlisea species were growing: G. roraimensis G. repens The third species is a species that is reffered to by Andreas Fleischmann as Genlisea pygmaea "medium"
  22. Oops, somehow my post showed up twice. Please delete.
  23. Nice shots! The sundew looks to me as D. burkeana and the Utric is probably U. arenaria.
  24. I have succeeded to get Utricularia tenella seeds germinating, so far so good. But I want to be sure that it grows at optimal conditions. Can anyone perhaps tell me what the best conditions for growing this plant are? Does it need high water levels? High light intensoties? Thanks, John
  25. I have succeeded to get Utricularia tenella seeds germinating, so far so good. But I want to be sure that it grows at optimal conditions. Can anyone perhaps tell me what the best conditions for growing this plant are? Does it need high water levels? High light intensoties? Thanks, John
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