CPS Kew visit 2014 Cephfan's pics

[CephFan]

Evening All,

 

A quick photo thread and a huge thank you to Mitch, Nick and all the staff at Kew for organising such a great day out today.

 

We met in the staff mess room and then headed out into the private glasshouses. I forget how many separate sections there are (around 20?), each of which has a distinct climate regime.

 

I set out directly for the Temperate house.Here there are pings, utrics, sundews, cephs etc (and some of the etc are pretty cool). 

 

Pinguicula laueana

 

Drosera whittakeri

 

Cephalotus follicularis

 

There were many other fine plants but particularly striking were the Drosophyllum lusitanicum

'Slack-potted' and looking very fine backlit by the winter sun.

 

The Nepenthes were probably the stars of the show, ceratinly the glamour queens.

Nepenthes bicalcurata

 

Nepenthes ampullaria

 

I think that the Nepenthes robcantleyi was probably my favourite. This one's actually in the public display. There is a whole section devoted to a range or very fine specimens with a variety of species.

 

Nepenthes robcantleyi

 

Evil Nepenthes!

 

N. robcantleyi lying down on the job.

 

We were also very lucky to see the Herbarium. >7M specimens saved for posterity.

 

 

This is a type specimen of Sarracenia leucophylla dated 1867

 

As a special treat we were also shown a tomato specimen which was collected by a certain Mr Charles Darwin on the voyage of the Beagle.

 

All in all it was a fantastic meeting.

 

Cheers,

Steve

Edited December 6, 2014 by CephFan

[Mark Anderson]

That must have been an awesome day, now my wee sister has moved to London I know have somewhere to stay Free of charge. Will ha ave to make it to the next kew visit. Cheers for the pics cephfan

Mark