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Plant hunting

seedjar

Let's positive thinking!
Hey all, I was just browsing when I came across the Nepenthes thread on N. x cantleyi, named after one of our own forum members. I've noticed several other threads on new species, new colonies, etc. in the wild, but I haven't come up with a general idea of how people came upon this unusual hobby. My guess is that you're professionals of one sort or another.
Anyways, I always thought it would be a kick to do that kind of stuff (I used to badly want to be an orchid hunter) and I'm interested to know what brought people to plant hunting.
~Joe
 
Start in a cp range and go bogging. knee or hip waders (definatly need to be rubber) are very very helpful. I have not found anything great just normal cps. It takes time and patence. You can walk over a colony of several million Drosera and not notice until you find your first in the wild. I would recomend going to state or National Parks where cps are known to grow. Once you find them there you will be in the mindset so you can find them aas you drive along the road (I recommend you are not the one driving and looking). Depressions are almost where all US cps are in or by the edges of lakes/ponds.
If you mean how to find new species I cannot help you on that. You will have to ask Fernando.
 
Time, money, and a magnifying glass. More than that, i can't tell you.
 
Well only the cost of moving your body to new places. If you are looking at Drosera get a 8x magnifying glass with sides to place around the Drosera. That eliminates your hands shaking.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Treaqum @ Jan. 24 2005,8:25)]Well only the cost of moving your body to new places.
Really? How about a 1500 dollar air fare to mobe your body to borneo?
 
I guess I should have been a little more specificl in my wording... I understand the mechanics of a field survey (done more than I care for in ecology classes) and was more wondering why and how people come upon the habit of seeking out plants in the wild (carnivorous or otherwise.) How is the search guided - is there some sort of heuristic procedure for finding a good place to start looking? Is it common to get paid for this kind of thing, or is it something people do for fun and - if they're lucky - it later becomes a career?
Thanks guys!
~Joe
 
No careers that I know of. Look in approprate habitats (for cps next to lakes, in roadside ditches, etc). You will get no moenuy excpet your own joy. Do not take anything from the wild.
Well Tunasuprise I was think more like you looking in the US or Australia and depending where you live its about $500
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ] N. x cantleyi
its a hybrid, not a species. Generaly naming privleges goes to whomever frst gets out a botonical description of
 
Phil Sheridan made a living at it, Larry Mellicamp is still doing the same. Ron Gardener, Barry Rice, and a few others are still doing field work in CP. Yes, you can make a living, but by the time you get your Doctorate, the plants will have been mostly eradicated. Tre knows about that, having done as many rescues as he possibly could. To those who worship the dollar, just vegetation to be removed and built upon. That is why we keep them going, but why we love them is always personal. I have many bog location species, and will produce a growlist, though not large, it's pretty complete for American sarrs. I know why I spent years in the field before settling down. When I started growing, information on CP was almost non-existant. I went out myself, and studied bogs from North Carolina to Alabama. From '70 to '75, I spent a lot of time thumbing and setting up camp where ever and observed plants in the field for weeks on end. I loved it, and would love to do it again.
 
  • #10
Yeah, I know it's a hybrid, Finch, that's what the x is there for. :p
I was just trying to be general. And Bugweed - how pessimistic! (Although my inner pragmatist agrees wholeheartedly.) I don't know if I'll ever get the chance to do any CP botany, but I am pursuing a BS in evolutionary ecology so it's possible. Really, I don't care if I have something named after me, discover some missing link or whatever - I just like to raise living things, and one of the only things that gives me more pleasure is witnessing living things in the environment from which they arose. I like to camp as it is, so if I could get a gig camping and looking at funky, killer plants, that would be the best.
Thanks guys!
~Joe
 
  • #11
Congrats on a good cp life Bugweed
 
  • #12
There are thousands of species still to be "discovered" or more correctly, to be described. You are less likely to find these plants in the well-traveled parts of the world. The more inaccessible and inhospitable the place, the less likely that it has been thoroughly "botanized". Further, the more obscure the plant, the less likely that it has been completely studied. One is more likely to find new species of Genlisea than of Sarracenia.
 
  • #14
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  Hey, what's this?  My name, my plants and the words "magnifying glass" are used in the same thread!  Surely you must be thinking of some other supplier
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  • #15
LOL, good one ROB!!!
I am curious though: When "plant hunting," what kind of weapon do you use, rifle, bow or what?
Are they dangerous when wounded?
"That bical should have dropped around here somewh-IIEEE!!! The darn thing gots it's fangs buried in my calf! Get it off!!!"

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  • #16
[b said:
Quote[/b] (The Griffin @ Mar. 01 2005,8:28)]LOL, good one ROB!!!
I am curious though: When "plant hunting," what kind of weapon do you use, rifle, bow or what?
 Are they dangerous when wounded?
 "That bical should have dropped around here somewh-IIEEE!!! The darn thing  gots it's fangs buried in my calf! Get it off!!!"

 
smile_n_32.gif
a charging hamata is enough to make most turn and run for the safty of their safari car
 
  • #17
I talked to friend who used to go botanizing with some other botanists. He said basically over a week they would pin point an area or location to start and a perrimeter to be combed thoroughly. Come Friday after work they would take off and make it back just in time for work Monday morning or take a few extra days off depending on where they were going. They were cactus hunters though not CP.
 
  • #18
Cactus hunters...man. Cp hunters have only a couple of "toothy" ones to watch out for, but if you don't drop one of these cacti on the first shot.....


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  • #20
There are cacti ALL over the place here! They grow anywhere and everywhere!
 
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