Binataboy Posted September 20, 2003 Report Share Posted September 20, 2003 Well all looks like my hard work has started to pay off. I think I may have found a new species of upright Drosera in SE Australia. It may not be new to science as a number of upright drosera have been described over the years and reduced to synonyms of D. auriculata or D. peltata, with varying degrees of acceptance. The ICPS has even reduced D. auriculata to D. peltata ssp. auriculata, which puzzled most people over here as it makes less botanical sense (to someone like me) than calling all Sarracenia the one species. After all these two species grow and flower side by side and I have never seen any hybridisation, where Sarracenia hybridisation in the wild is well documented. A friend and I have been trying to get our heads around the upright Drosera in SE Australia as they have been sorely neglected by botanists. We had been searching some locations where auriculata and peltata are found. There were many growth forms of uprights, the classic peltata and auriculata and several other growth forms I could not identify properly. When I returned a few months later the odd forms we had seen turned out to simply be growth forms of auriculata with the exception of one location where the plants were, well for lack of a better word, wrong! The flower buds were hairy, and not like a peltata, these look like real fuzballs. Were these plants hybrids, aberrant forms, what was going on. It was very had to tell as they were growing in-between stands of auriculata and peltata. My initial thought was that maybe auriculata and peltata can hybridise after all. The next step was when I saw the EXACT same plant growing about 100km away! This time there were no auriculata or peltata growing nearby and there were large stands of this plant, covering too large an area to be populated vegetatively. The uniformity in the plants indicated they must come true from seed indicating they are not a hybrid. The plants should be flowering in the next few weeks, then I should know a little more of the puzzle, and after that its off to a local uni for a bit of DNA work!! I have some pics I will post soon… George Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Aidan Posted September 20, 2003 Report Share Posted September 20, 2003 George - A great find if you are able to confirm it. There must still be many new species to find in Australia. :bigok: I look forward to the photographs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Posted September 20, 2003 Report Share Posted September 20, 2003 Very nice. Get lots of pics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maria Posted September 20, 2003 Report Share Posted September 20, 2003 Can't wait to see the pics George Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JanW Posted September 22, 2003 Report Share Posted September 22, 2003 Wow! Very interesting indeed! The pics on your homepage are great, too. I hope to see more of them!! Jan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giles_KS Posted October 9, 2003 Report Share Posted October 9, 2003 George, What happened about the unusual D. auriculata with the hairy sepals? Did the flowers open? Giles Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JanW Posted October 14, 2003 Report Share Posted October 14, 2003 Yes, please tell us! I am very curious about this one. Jan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Binataboy Posted October 15, 2003 Author Report Share Posted October 15, 2003 Hi All, I have been away for a while for work and only got back late last night. But got straight back into it today! I looked at a location this morning to see how they are doing. All three "species" were in flower. At one area there were all three together, but at other areas there were only "normal" auriculata and peltata growing, sometimes side by side. I broke open a seed pod and the seeds looked very simmilar to peltata seed. They were not quite ripe, and when they are I will be able to have a better look under a microscope. What I saw today makes me a feel more confident they are a different species. Unfortunatly I didn't take my camera so I do not have any pics to post but want to head back for a few pics. I collected a few flowers to disect so it will be interesting to have a closer look at the flower stuctures under magnification. Tamlin, I have spoken to Robert a few times now, hopefully we will be able to swap some data soon as the plants mature. Australia is a bit to big for one person! The situation I am in is that I have found a number of plants in the field that don't want to fit into any category, so there is a huge amount of work to go yet! :? I have a couple of other interesting pics I will try to post when I get the time. George Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Binataboy Posted October 16, 2003 Author Report Share Posted October 16, 2003 I have to agree with Tamlin about Dr. Schlaurer's stance on D. auriculata and D. peltata being the same species. I feel anyone who thinks this could not have seen these plants growing in the field as they commonly grow within the same areas and even side by side and clearly don't hybridise. You only have to look under a lense to see the differences in flower structure, not to mention seed shape, which couldn't be much different if you tried! The only support for this argument is that the plants we call peltata and auriculata are not actualy these plants, in which case what do we have? I intend to try and publish this "species" but as I said there is a lot of work to be done yet. I need the discription of peltata to campare, and does anyone know what is the type location for peltata and auriculata? And does anyone have any "peltatoid" plants with location information, especialy from other countries? I have collected a couple of "type" specimens for furthur study, which will hopefull end up in a herbarium. I am thinking about studying latin... :? George Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Binataboy Posted October 22, 2003 Author Report Share Posted October 22, 2003 Well after spending all last night dissecting flowers under a dissecting microscope and drawing ovaries, while Kyrill was writing up descriptions of the plants. It became fairly clear that the "new species" we had found simply appears to be D. peltata... But the conversation drifted to forms of peltata, and eventually to wether foliosa was assigned species or sub-species rank. Kyrill hunted through some papers that had been sent to us from Robert Gibbson and found reference to Drosera foliosa, which happened to have some plates attached. What has been considered to simply be D. peltata all this time is actually D. foliosa!! So much for finding something new, all we managed to do is realise that they got it right a long time ago… The big question is what do you all have in your collections as “peltata”… George Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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