johnvdw Posted October 15, 2014 Report Share Posted October 15, 2014 Recently I have from a 30 day round trip at the island of Madagascar, to enjoy the remaining nature and some stunning landscapes. The main interest was to see as many nice animals as possiblef I spotted about 17 different species of lemurs and a few other mammals. Next to that I saw ca 10 species of Chameleon together with some species of gecko, snake and frogs. Carnivorous plants were considered by me as a bonus on my trip. Also because it was probably not the best season to look for CP's since spring was just starting and in some areas it was about the end of the dry season. Nonetheless the bonus was not bad at all :-) The first species of carnivorous plant species I encountered was "surprisingly" Drosera madagascariensis. Some groups of nice plant were growing at a seapage at Ranomafana NP in the east. This parc is well known from its rainforest. Isalo NP, somewhat in the South/South West of the island, the environment is much drier and warmer than the previous parc. The surroundings of the parc reminded of the African savannah. Though in the parc their were several gorges with running water and also some seapages. Like in Ranomofana, also on these seapages D. madagascariensis was found, this time together with U. livida (for some reason my camera had some troubles with the light colored flowers). At a somewhat more sunny and more sandy site the U. livida were somewhat different: In another part of the parc I found some different sundews: Drosera natalensis Later on we travelled to the east of the island, to an area known as the Canal de Pangalanes. This is a chain of lakes close to the coast connected to each other by canals. At this site it did not take long before I found the first cp's overhere: the sandy shores of lake were rich on small terrestial Utricularia flowers. Mostly U. arenaria and in way lower numbers U. subulata. The U. arenaria was proved to be somewhat variable, sometimes first the flowers appeared and in a later stage followed by the leaves. In the end I found a tiny marshy area with a really nice form of D. madagascariensis: 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnvdw Posted October 15, 2014 Author Report Share Posted October 15, 2014 But this was not all, close to our hotel, along a small river, there were a handfull of really big Nepenthes madagascariensis plants growing. Surprisingly lower pitchers seemed to be absent (maybe with the exeption for one seedling). Uppers were present in all different sizes. At least one pitcher was inhabited (by a tiny crabspider?): Some kilometers further, at a comparable site there was another stand of N. madagascariensis: I kept on searching for more N. madagascariensis though I did not succeed..... However I found some plants I did niot expect to find: N. masoalensis!!! Also at the second site N. masoalensis was present, this time no upper pitchters. However I found a picture of a N. masoalensis upper pitcher photographed at this site or very close to here. It could be quetioned whether these N. masoalensis plants are naturally occuring here, far from the Masoala peninsula. Especially the sign rises questionmarks, The sign is planted along a trail leading to a private park, so does this mean these N. masoalensis plants are planted here? I doubt so: most people will not directly recognize the difference between both Madagascar Nepenthes species. It is a really poor country and the Masoala peninsula is very hard to access, so that would be a lot of effort for something "not really spectaculair". This private park seems to be quite new while the plants are growing there for many years already, also along a part of the trail not leading to the park. At the second site the local guide told me that the N.masoalensis plants were truly growing naturally at that site. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meizwang Posted October 15, 2014 Report Share Posted October 15, 2014 Those first N. madagascariensis photos are impressive, thanks so much for sharing! Do you have any photos of the animals too, especially the chameleons? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vincent Posted October 15, 2014 Report Share Posted October 15, 2014 Great!!! Thanks for sharing. I really like the picture of N. madagascariensis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zlatokrt Posted October 16, 2014 Report Share Posted October 16, 2014 There are not many field reports from Madagascar, thank you very much for the pics! I second Meizwang, any chameleons? :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
North West Neps Posted October 16, 2014 Report Share Posted October 16, 2014 I'm envious of your trip But thanks so much for sharing ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devon.B Posted October 17, 2014 Report Share Posted October 17, 2014 Thanks for sharing these pics! Could the last pic of of D. madagascariensis actually be D. affinis x madagascariensis? Did you see any D. affinis? It reminds me a lot of this picture: http://bilder.utricularia.net/a_s_fleischmann/drosera_africa/D_aff_X_mad_02.jpg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ewjlamb Posted October 20, 2014 Report Share Posted October 20, 2014 What a great trip! Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnvdw Posted October 20, 2014 Author Report Share Posted October 20, 2014 Glad to hear you all enjoy the photo's otf my Madagascar trip. @ DevonB: I had some doubt about the ID of the third D. madagascariensis too. I did go through quite some pictures, including the D. affinis hybrid. I did not see any D. affinis during my trip, and as far as I know it is not native to Madagascar. But I found several pics of D. madagascariensis that are quite similar to the plants from Madagascar, including the first picture of Andreas Fleischmann's post (http://www.cpukforum.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=17731) and http://www.westafricanplants.senckenberg.de/root/index.php?page_id=14&species=3240. For the Chameleon lovers a few examples: And a true beauty, unfortunately not in the wild: And a little bit more N. madagascariensis: 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devon.B Posted October 22, 2014 Report Share Posted October 22, 2014 Whoops, I just kind of assumed D. affinis was native for some reason. Hybrid or not, it's a beautiful sundew. Love the chameleon shots! So much variation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fernando Rivadavia Posted November 15, 2014 Report Share Posted November 15, 2014 Wow, great pics, thanks for sharing! It's not every day we see field reports from Madagascar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Evans Posted November 20, 2014 Report Share Posted November 20, 2014 (edited) err, I am now wondering if N. masoalensis isn't a mirabilis or distillatoria hybrid... I realize it doesn't make sense, but that is what I see when I look at N. masoalensis... D. madagascariensis looks different in different seasons, so that might have something to do with why it looks odd at the one site. The kind while spread in cultivation is from the Okavango Delta and isn't even from Madagascar. Edited November 20, 2014 by Dave Evans Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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