U.menziesii in the field

[wadave]

Hi everyone,

I thought I would share some awesome photos from a few of my most recent field trips.

This lot of photos are from John Forrest National Park and as I was not expecting to find U.menziesii it was a real thrill to see so many plants in the one spot.

It will be amazing to see them all in flower.

So here goes.

This last one isn't the spot where I took the above photos but I've included it here because it's the closest photo I took on the day that gives you an idea of just how big of an area the above plants were growing in.

The U.menziesii site was just a few minutes walk east of this granite outcrop and was quite a bit wetter. I followed the flow of water until I found a seep. In the moss I found more plants as expected and I think this will be a good place to find other utrics in flower later in the season.

All up on this particular day I would have seen close to 10 or 11 species of local Australian drosera, I'm still learning to identify so I could be out on that number.

From memory I sawthe following drosera; D.erythrorhiza ssp squamosa, heterophylla (in flower), stolonifera ssp porecta (in various stages of emerging and flowering), pallida, bulbosa, rosulata?, menziesii, a type of pygmie I cant ID at this point, U.menziesii, and a few other erect drosera that could have been immature versions of some of the above or another species that I can't ID yet.

Anyway, I hope you get a thrill from these photos.

Dave.

[Daniel O.]

Hi Dave,

really a huge number of plants.

Please keep us updated when they are in flower, it´s for sure a very beautiful view.

Have you taken pictures from some of the Drosera too?

Best regards,

Dani

[wadave]

Hi Dani,

It will be an amazing site to see so many red flowers in the one spot so I will definately be keeping my eyes on them over the next few months. Everything is at least a month late emerging and flowering here, the D.stolonifera ssp porrecta have only just started to emerge over the last few weeks and according to the WA seasonal chart they should have been arriving at the beginning of June.

Yes I have also taken a few photos of the other drosera I've seen so I will have to spend some time to post them in the drosera section soon.

Dave.

[Sean Spence]

That's a very impressive colony. Unfortunately, the species does not flower in profusion so you will not likely see a large amount of flowers.

[Martin Hingst]

Hi Dave,

that is indeed very interesting, and I also look forward to the next pics of yours Flowering time should be not too far away, I wish you enough rain in the next weeks!

It would also be interesting to see, what other Utricularia species you will find there. Keep us informed

Thanks and regards

Martin

[Sean Spence]

I'm actually surprised that there are no emerging flowerscapes to be seen. I would have thought they'd be on their way by now. Are they growing in a shady spot?

[wadave]

Hi guys,

I was there again yesterday with George, formerly from Victoria, and we did indeed spot some newly emerging flower scapes.

George expressed a worry that these may not be U.menziesii but something else.

I will be very dissapointed if they turn out to be something other than menziesii, but I guess they will be starting to flower over the next few weeks so we shall see then.

Sean, these guys are growing on granite outcrops and are in full sun, their late flowering has been caused by a late start in the cold weather and rains.

The utrics I saw at the Armadale golf course site were growing in swapy patches in the middle of a heath habitat. The heath would be approx three feet high max and the swampy patches are meters across so shading would only occur from very early and very late in the day.

Other than that it's wait and see.

Dave.

[Fredders]

Hey Dave

The leaves look like they belong to U. menziesii. A pretty awesome patch too.

Did you take pics of the Drosera from there too?

cheers

Steve

[wadave]

Hi Steve,

Yes I've taken quite a few photos over the last few field trips, I just have to sit down and resize them to upload onto photobucket.

I've already started to put the best ones together so they should be up on the forum soon.

Dave.

[Sean Spence]

Hi Dave,

I'd be very, very surprised if those leaves were from anything other than U. menziesii. The only other possibility would be U. multifida and I would not expect those to be as robust as the plants in your images. There is one sure method of identifying the plants- you didn't check for tubers by any chance? (Yes, I know it is a National Park )

[obregon562]

i sure hope they turn out to be menziesii! even if they aren't, which i highly doubt (as others have said), it will be amazing nontheless. Thanks for sharing!

[wadave]

Hi Guys,

There have been quite a few more spots that George and I have found over the last few weeks with utrics and all of them are showing signs of flowering.

From what I've seen there are at least three different species we've seen.

One has leaves that are very similar to the little pot of U.menziesii Phill gave to me, the second has very much shinnier leaves that are pressed flat to the ground and a third which has much larger and erect leaves.

Sean, we've investigated a few of the plants at several sites to see if there are any tubers and the ones we saw didn't seem to have any so it may just be that multifida, which is very common, is the culprit. I couldn't tell you what the JF NP plants were as we didn't think to check. We we're just blown away by the size of the colony.

What has me worried is the flower stalks of U.menziesii that I've seen in photos are very red from the start and what I'm seeing are green stalks and flower buds on most of the plants we've seen.

Dave.

[wadave]

It's a month later and we're still waiting for the first flowers to break so we can identify the utrics that we've found.

George was in John Forrest last week and he told me nothing was open yet.

I did see some U.multifida open way down south near Bunbury, and looking at the leaves on those plants, the photos at the JFNP site are definately not multifida.

This August just gone was apparently the third driest on record so I don't know how this is affecting the plants we've seen.

Dave.

[wadave]

Hi everyone,

George and I paid a quick visit to the Armadale golf course site today and we spotted a very small purple/blue utric flower, around 3-4mm in width and what looks to be multifida.

This was a patch that George visited last week and I've not seen before. there was also very nice solid patches of D.menziesii and some D.gigantea and a third erect drosera we were not able to confidently able to id.

We then wen't back to the spot I had seen in some of the earlier posts in this thread, all of the water has dried up due to almost two months with very little to no rain, which is what I'd expected to see.

However, instead of lots of utrics, a good deal of the plants turned out to be a white flowered stylidium.....

I was crushed. I was really hoping to see at least a few U.menziesii in flower. Apparently Greg from Sydney has seen them there and perhaps I was looking in the wrong spot.

George and I decided to come back later and search down a few of vehicle tracks that run through the site. Fingers crossed this next lot of rain clouds extends the season a bit so we don't have to wait for next season.

I will upload some photos I managed to get of the tiny utric flowers we saw at George's site when I get the time.

Dave.

[Sean Spence]

The small purple Utricularia flowers will not be U. multifida as they are pink (or rarely white). It is most likely that they will be U. violacea judging by the size.

[wadave]

Hi Sean,

I've seen multifida in several locations, even a few white flowered ones so I wasn't thinking the small purple/blue flowers were multifida.

Voilacea seems to be a name I remember Greg mentioning in one of his VCPS forum letters to the group a few months back, so you're probably bang on there.

Apparently there is menziesii at this spot too but what I thought was the likely suspect due to leaf shap, size and colour is this white flowered stylidium. I managed to collect a plug from this site and they are very nearly in flower so I will also include a few closeups when they do flower to show what I mean.

Dave.

[Sean Spence]

Hi Dave,

Just reread your post and see what you meant. U. violacea is reasonably common in areas that U. multifida grows.

Look forward to seeing the Stylidium shots.

[wadave]

Hi Sean,

Here are some shots of U.violacea and the stylidium we found at the Armadale golf course site, and the stylidium we saw at the Dwellingup site.

[Sean Spence]

Thanks Dave. A beautiful little flower U. violacea has- pity that it is an annual and so damned small.

So it looks like you have gone a full season without seeing U. menziesii in bloom? Better luck next year.

[wadave]

Hi Sean,

I'm with you on that, I was kind of hopeing that it would be similar in size to dichotoma, seeing as it looks very similar in shape and colour.

It was also very dissapointing with not seeing U.menziesii in flower, even the one that Phill gave me earlier this year wasn't forthcomming.

Well there's always next year.

Dave.

[Martin Hingst]

Hi Dave,

thanks for the violacea shots - even more rare to be seen than U.menziesii flowers!

Regards

Martin

[wadave]

Hi Martin,

Are they really?

George and I saw bunches of them at this particular site which looked as though it had been burnt out a short time before.

Either that or I still haven't found the right spots for menziesii yet, which is silly 'cause according to Alan Lowrie's books it grows all over the place.

Dave.

[Sean Spence]

I think Martin means in photographic form. As the species is an annual it is not grown by many and photos are rarely posted. Near Esperance I found them to be about as common as U. menziesii.