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South African CP's


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Went for a hike up a little mountain in one of our flower reserves and came across a treat.

Roridula gorgonias, ok not strickly a carnivorous plant but worth a glance plus they were in full flower.

Came across other Drosera species too. Hopefully I have lablelled them correctly.

View from top of mountain (not sure of its name :shock:) but the CP's were growing all along the cooler wet slopes.

Gaansbaay.jpg

Drosera glabripes (my local guide and CP enthusiast said he once followed a D. glabripes root when they were constructing a pathway and it went further than 2meters!)

D-3.jpg

D-2.jpg

Drosera alicea

D.jpg

Drosera hilaris

D-4.jpg

Drosera cistiflora

D-1.jpg

Roridula gorgonias (not the dentata I thought it was) (they were standing 1.5m or so. What a treat as I had never before seen them)

Roriduladentata1.jpg

Roriduladentata2.jpg

Roriduladentata8.jpg

Roriduladentata10.jpg

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Fantastic! Actually it is Roridula gorgonias :shock:

The Drosera are all named correctly. I love the D. hilaris. Just wish that my tiny plants would decide to grow.

Just wondering, what are the average temps for that region at this time of year?

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awsome. plain and simple. just awsome!

once i get enough money (assuming i do :shock: ) i hope to go to different cp sites...hopefully!

great shots, and thanks for sharing!

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Hello Mono,

Very nice photographs!

Do you have been to the Fernkloof Nature Reserve, near the town of Hermanus? That view looked so familiar to me ;)

I would call that D. aliciae a D. curviscapa. D. curviscapa has petioles not covered by tentacles, and it's a plant of dry habitats, whereas D. aliciae prefers to grow in very wet soils or seepages. And flowers of D. aliciae and D. curviscapa are totally different. I cannot understand how some people can lump those 2 species together ;).

All the best,

Andreas

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Nice! I'm in the Cape in November for just under a month. I really must make an effort to look for CPs - the trip is primarily a birding one. Any sites especially worthwhile?

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D. aliciae (D. curviscapa) still learning. Never heard of this one before Andreas, its not on my SA species list. I will have to look it up. However that D aliciae was growing in very wet areas. usually seepages off the hillsides. I was standing in shallow puddles to take the pic.

Yip Fernkloof is a fantastic reserve to see CPS it is close to that place, Near Hermanus.

Sean

Average temperatures are low night temp of anything between 2-8degree celcius to average day temperatures of about 22degrees with a few warmer days inbetween.

the Roridula is definately dentata though. Double checked it with the reserve botanists.

What would make it the other?

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Thanks for the info on temperature variations. I didn't realise that it reached as high as the low 20's at the moment. The reason I asked was to compare to my own conditions.

I'm afraid that I'll have to disagree with the botanist. The plants are definitely R. gorgonias. The leaves of R. gorgonias are simple and do not fork (Andreas will have a better botanical description of this :D ). Those of R. dentata are more complex, pinnate may be a way to describe them :?: . Once again, Andreas will provide a better botanical explanation than I.

Here's a link to an example of the leaf form of R. dentata

http://www.drosophyllum.com/Bilder/roridula_d01.jpg

and one of R. gorgonias

http://fernkloof.com/species.mv?166

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Nice! I'm in the Cape in November for just under a month. I really must make an effort to look for CPs - the trip is primarily a birding one. Any sites especially worthwhile?

Fernkloof and Table Mountain (the top) for starters...

and a primarily bird trip, to one of the richest botanical regions in the world, shame on you... :D

:wink:

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Hello,

Sean, I could not have described the leaves of both Roridula species better than you did! ;)

Both species are well separated both ecologically and by distribution:

R. gorgonias is only known from 2 locations on costal mountains in the Hermanus area (Fernkloof NR and Palmietriver NR), where it grows in very wet conditions in seeps in shruby fynbosh vegetation.

R. dentata has a much wider distribution, it's growing on the mountain plateaus of Tulbagh, Ceres and Clanwilliam district. There, it's growing on dry, sandy ground in dry poor fynbosh vegetation.

Drosera curviscapa is regarded to be conspecific with D. aliciae by some peolpe, as they do with D. admirabilis and D. cuneifolia. In my opinion, these 4 species are all well separated from each other, both by a set of morphological characters as well as by their habitat preferences.

In case you still refer to Obermeyer's monograph of Droseraceae in Flora of Southern Africa: Mrs. Obermeyer did not have any idea about Drosera!! She made such a mess in her treatment! She even thought that D. slackii was the same as D. aliciae!!

I'm writing the chapter Droseraceae for the Flora of the Eastern Cape project, which will be printed in 2009. Additionally, I have designed a new key for all Drosera species of southern Africa, which was a lot of work. I still want to approve it a little bit, but then we will finally have a good identification key to the 20 species of Drosera growing in the Cape area, plus the 6 additional species of the eastern Cape region.

All the best,

Andreas

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Fantastic Andreas. This is a new adventure for me and a good key will come in handy! I am using a key I got off one of the american CP sites, but I am no botanist, so half does not make sense unless I see pictures. I am a horticulturist working on fynbos with an interest in starting a complete SA carnivorous plant collection. I just find they all look so similar. Learning curve but looking forward to it.

You are all so much help. Thank you!

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I just find they all look so similar.

After a while they won't :(

a complete SA carnivorous plant collection.

We share the same dream. You are in a little better situation to achieve it than I am though. :(

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi,

I have been to that Fernkloof reserve to and I have seen Roridula gorgonias there on a wet spot. Maybe it is the same place I have seen them.

And also Droseras. Does that Roridula flower all the year? I have seen it into flower in your summer in Februari.

Regards,

Alexander

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