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Drosera at the Darling area - South Africa


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Hi all,

the area around the town of Darling has some very interested places if you are into plants in general. After visiting Peter Hewitt's Nursery in the morning we started to drive towards Clanwilliam. On this way we went to three different locations in the Darling area.

The first stop was at a location where we know, that there must be some plants of a cream/yellow flowered Drosera zeyheri. We have been there already in 2009, but did not find the plants. The first plants we found there were those:

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A few mintes later we could find the first Drosera trinervia as we as some deep red plants of Drosera cistiflora.

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This time we even found the Drosera zeyheri! The plants are growing scattered around the ground. Saddly they have already stopped flowering, so we had no chance to see the flowers.

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You can see pictures of the flowers from a 2006 Tour from Ferando Rivadavia here: http://www.cpukforum.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=24574&hl=zeyherii#entry203464

Edited by Christian
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The next stop was a nice meadow with lots of wild flowers. Just for this it is worth going there! For me, the most impressing plant on that place was Geissorhiza radians.

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But, also there are lots more interesting plants!

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We also found this little tortoise:

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But, the actual reason to go there was a population of Drosera cistiflora, that is growing there too. In 2009 we had the great luck to see a mass flower of them, this year the place was a bit drier and some of the plants have already died back. We still found some Drosera cistiflora growing here and there but it was in no way comparable to what we saw in 2009.

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Besides Drosera cistiflora, there are also some Drosera pauciflora growing, which we have not seen in flower last time. In 2009 we went there twice. The first time we have been there all Drosera pauciflora looked like they start to flower soon. We have searched the whole location, but could not find any opened flower. It looked like there will be a mass flower a day or two later, so we decided to go back there. Three days later we returned and the whol situation had changed. All plants had spent flowers! We could not find a single plant, that looked like it will flower soon. And of course, we could not find an open flower. It looks like the plants all flowered in between. There must have been our expected mass flower a day before we went there the second time.

But, this year we were a bit more lucky and we could find some almost opened flowers of Drosera pauciflora!

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In the late afternoon we arrived on the last location for that day.

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This is one of the very few places where the red flowered Drosera cistiflora grow.

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Saddly, no opened flower! The red is one of the most striking. It really looks like in the pictures. For me, the nicest of all Drosera cistiflora!

I hope, it is ok to post some many pictures in just one thread, but i did not want to show the carnivorous plants only.

Christian

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Wonderful pictures :jive: , Christian. You are, without doubt, an excellent photographer and a lucky person to find in nature as beautiful specimens :thanks: .

Thank you so much for sharing these images on CPUK :cheers: .

Best regards,

Rodrigo

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Guest Andreas Eils

Hi Christian,

oh da wächst ja roter Enzian in Südafrika!!! :biggrin: Okay, most likely it´s in fact no gentian, but the first plants you discovered look really nice!

Good luck and bad luck seem to balance each other! Bad luck here, good luck there! ;o) I think I haven´t see the creamy-yellow flowers of D. zeyheri ever before. Creamy-yellow sounds always exciting!

The red is one of the most striking. It really looks like in the pictures. For me, the nicest of all Drosera cistiflora!

You´re so right! What do you think how happy I´d be growing the red flowering D. cistiflora?! :wink:

Thank you for the flower show! =D

Andreas

Edited: The "gentian" is in fact Romulea eximia as a little research has proven.

Edited by Andreas Eils
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