Hi everyone,
I went on yet another fieldtrip over the weekend in the hope of finding some nice forms of U. dichotoma and D. binata. I didn't have any luck with the binata but had very good success with the dichotoma. The place I visited was the Grampians National Park (supposedly has similarities with the Scottish Grampians- many more CP's though) in western Victoria, south eastern Australia. The area is probably the best spot to see wild CP's in this part of the country. It consists of granitc peaks and lowland heaths and swamps.
I've had to split up the posts because I had too many good photos to show and didn't know which ones to knock out. Anyway here are the shots.
Fisrtly, a mountain growing form of U. dichotoma. I consider this plant to be at least a ssp. of the typical dichotoma and is markedly different from the lowland typical forms. It is very small- no taller than 10cms, frequently around 5cms. The flowers scapes are very thin and fragile compared to the typical. The flower is smaller and a completely different shade of purple- this is consistent. The ridges on the palate are much more pronounced. The plants are annuals. Anyway here are a few shots of the plants and their habitat. They grow in moss on granite rocks with water flowing through the moss most of the year.
You can see plants growing in the depression as well as on the rocks to the left-
Next a population of the plants growing in the depression-
More plants growing in moss on top of granite-
A closeup of the flower-
And a shot of the pollinator of U. aff. dichotoma. Its not a very good shot but you get the idea. It was very hard trying to follow a bee around when it only lands on each flower for about a second-
I also managed to find the typical form of U. dichotoma growing at the base of the mountain range in permanently wet swampland. There were a couple of nice surprises amongst these plants-
Firstly the habitat. Plants grew in the water amongst the reeds in the foreground. The U. aff. dichotoma grows on top of the mountains in the distance-
Next a beautiful form of the typical U. dichotoma-
And another-
Followed by a triple-header-
And finally, a superb white flowered variant-
You can make up your own mind on whether you believe the two forms (highland and lowland) to be distinct- I certainly believe there is enough consistent differences for them to be considered at least different subspecies of U. dichotoma
I will post images of other species found on my trip in my next post, including a shot of 3 distinct dichotoma flowers side by side.
Please check out the follow-on post in the Drosera section.
Regards,
Sean.
I went on yet another fieldtrip over the weekend in the hope of finding some nice forms of U. dichotoma and D. binata. I didn't have any luck with the binata but had very good success with the dichotoma. The place I visited was the Grampians National Park (supposedly has similarities with the Scottish Grampians- many more CP's though) in western Victoria, south eastern Australia. The area is probably the best spot to see wild CP's in this part of the country. It consists of granitc peaks and lowland heaths and swamps.
I've had to split up the posts because I had too many good photos to show and didn't know which ones to knock out. Anyway here are the shots.
Fisrtly, a mountain growing form of U. dichotoma. I consider this plant to be at least a ssp. of the typical dichotoma and is markedly different from the lowland typical forms. It is very small- no taller than 10cms, frequently around 5cms. The flowers scapes are very thin and fragile compared to the typical. The flower is smaller and a completely different shade of purple- this is consistent. The ridges on the palate are much more pronounced. The plants are annuals. Anyway here are a few shots of the plants and their habitat. They grow in moss on granite rocks with water flowing through the moss most of the year.
You can see plants growing in the depression as well as on the rocks to the left-
Next a population of the plants growing in the depression-
More plants growing in moss on top of granite-
A closeup of the flower-
And a shot of the pollinator of U. aff. dichotoma. Its not a very good shot but you get the idea. It was very hard trying to follow a bee around when it only lands on each flower for about a second-
I also managed to find the typical form of U. dichotoma growing at the base of the mountain range in permanently wet swampland. There were a couple of nice surprises amongst these plants-
Firstly the habitat. Plants grew in the water amongst the reeds in the foreground. The U. aff. dichotoma grows on top of the mountains in the distance-
Next a beautiful form of the typical U. dichotoma-
And another-
Followed by a triple-header-
And finally, a superb white flowered variant-
You can make up your own mind on whether you believe the two forms (highland and lowland) to be distinct- I certainly believe there is enough consistent differences for them to be considered at least different subspecies of U. dichotoma
I will post images of other species found on my trip in my next post, including a shot of 3 distinct dichotoma flowers side by side.
Please check out the follow-on post in the Drosera section.
Regards,
Sean.