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DESTINATION CARNIVOROUS PLANTS: AUSTRALIA TOUR 1995. This very adventurous and exciting search for carnivorous plants in Australia in 1995 has been extended with previously unreleased footage compared to the original released DVD in 1995. The adventure begins where our 1st tour ended in 1991, at the Lowries' home in Perth, with a lecture on Devil's Claws. Together we fly to Broome and drive with Sue Giesen's off-road bus towards Derby, always on the lookout for Byblis, sundews and bladderworts. In Derby we start with a small plane to Beverley Springs (today Charnley River Station), a wonderful CP-paradise. Then we continue to Halls Creek, where Sue Giesen is waiting with her bus. We fly over the pristine Bungle Bungles with a helicopter and then continue to Kununurra. There, the Lowries unexpectedly decide to travel on alone, so we are now on our own, which turns out to be a stroke of luck for our CP-search. We are the first to discover both the spider leg sundew, named after the Hartmeyers six years later, and the bug-plant symbioses on Byblis filifolia and various large sundews, previously unknown in tropical northern Australia, which we first published in the ACPS Journal in 1996. Then we continue to Darwin. During excursions to Howard Springs and the "Cathedrals of the North", enormous termite mounds, we discover more sundews populated by bugs as well as bladderworts. After a successful week, we fly on to Cairns for diving and snorkeling on the Barrier Reef and make excursions into the world's oldest rainforest. In Cairns we meet Trevor Hannam, president of the North Queensland Carnivorous Plant Society, who leads us on an adventurous trip to the only known pitcher plant in Australia at that time, Nepenthes mirabilis. There our film ends, which will be continued in a few months with our 3rd Australia movie "Fleischimania".

Near Beverley Springs (Australian Kimberley), we were able to film Utricularia antennifera in situ. The plants possess two antenna-like filaments at the otherwise inconspicuous flowers. According to Prof. W. Barthlott (University Bonn), that is probably a form of Mullerian mimicry: The flowers mimic a female insect to attract the male partners for pollination. Directly beside grows one of the smallest bladderworts. With a size of only two millimeters, the white flowers of U. quinquedentata are quite hard to find. We fished out these 1995 shots of rare Utricularia from our archive and remastered them for bladderwort enthusiasts.

Hi guys. I'm posting some more pics because now I have more plants. I swapped some Australian alvodandas for some Japanese ones. Here the green Japanese side by side with the Australian. There is also some U. gibba Two Japanese Bonus pic. My P. primuliflora

Hi guys, this is my out-door tank . Notice that it has clay on the bottom (it is important to give Boro to the plant), a thermometer / heater, CO2 injector, monocots (to inject O2 and CO2 in the water, and consume excess of nutrients and prevent algae growth), and water from a pond full of aquatic organisms (food). The water is dark because of the leaves of Drosera, Juncus, Carex sp. and others in the bottom. Tannin appears to have a role in plant development, and is found in its natural habitat. They came still green. Juncus, U. gibba and food... I mean, Biomphalaria sp. They soon became red, and look, they have flowers. Temperatures here are around 32 oC.

Sorry guys, I can't dele this. I tried...

Hello, this is a question to our Australian members. I was asked by a friend if she can send gemmae of Australian pygmy Drosera to Australia. I have told her that Australia has restrictive import regulations. It also seems somehow strange to export plants to a country where these are actually native. She has a good friend in Queensland who has just begun to find carnivores interesting. So, if you perhaps know a good source in Queensland, please let me know and I will forward the information. And ALSO: If you find sending gemmae from Germany to Australia is not such a bad idea please tell me how to do this best. But I would expect a phytosanitary certificate is a MUST and that would be much more expensive than a batch of gemmae themselves. Thank you also in the name of my friend! Andreas