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Showing results for tags 'arachnopus'.
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Even in 1753, Linnaeus described the Indian Sundew (Drosera indica) officially. In our film, we are especially happy to show the herbal records that existed at that time with the kind permission by the Trustees of the Natural History Museum London (GBR) and the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden (NLD). Despite their different appearance, between 1753 to 2001 all spider leg sundews (Drosera section Arachnopus) occuring from Africa over Asia to Australia were identified as D. indica. Some early attempts to assign plants as separate species, such as by Planchon in 1848, failed because the distinguishing characteristics were not considered sufficient and/or reliable. Eventually in 2017, we were able to examine also the micromorphology of the "real" D. indica and found emergences, which were obviously misinterpreted and/or ignored in the existing literature. Until today, the spider leg sundews are often confused and therefore incorrectly labeled in botanical gardens as well as private collections. With our film "Untangling the Indian Sundew Muddle" we hope to be helpful to assign D. indica correctly. We are very grateful for the kind support by taxonomy expert Dr. Jan Schlauer, for the provision of seeds from the "real" D. indica by Gideon Lim and the photos of D. barrettiorum by Holger & Anja Hennern.
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Our new film "The Realm of Emergences" shows the history and the currently most detailed description of the spider leg sundews (section Arachnopus) by their different emergences in an entertaining fashion. With D. hartmeyerorum, Dr. Jan Schlauer split the first species from D. indica for its unique morphology in 2001. Criticized by some experts at that time, today we can say with certainty that the plants in this section can actually be distinguished by their emergences, even if their function is often not known. Only the characteristics of the emergences of D. hartmeyerorum have been unequivocally proven. They function as optical lenses, which light up bright yellow even under a red laser beam. In D. cucullata we find structures that appear like ant abdomens and when the German couple Holger & Anja Hennern discovered a sundew with ice-lolly emergences in 2008, even the experts were amazed. These and further emergences that appear even more fascinating beneath the microscope help to identify the plants that have been distinguished from D. indica so far. Those who have seen this film should not have problems with naming the plants any more.
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- drosera aquatica
- drosera finlaysoniana
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