I've been out of town for a few weeks and came back to a mound of email.
I didn't have time to read the CP newsgroup, so I just searched through
it for the references to my name. Thanks for the occasional kind word
regarding the FAQ etc I wrote.
I'll comment on some of the high points of my last few weeks in the southeast
USA, running about the wetlands, ``mysterious Carolina Bays'', and dodging
the effects of Hurricane Opal... I'll write my notes ASAP.
I see some fury regarding the use of Latin in botanical writings. What's the
big deal here? Most of the time, the latin descriptions are accompanied by
descriptions of the plant in the tongue of the author. Certainly keys are
in other languages! If you wanted to read the original descriptions of tens
of plants, wouldn't you rather they were all in one language, than in
English, French, Spanish, German, etc etc?
>Utric on Mt. Roraima that feeds inside bromeliad pools was probably one of
>the most fascinating bits for me last night (aside from several dozen other
>fascinating bits :-)). Has anyone seen any other references to this habit
>in the literature? How does the utric find the pool? Is there some kind
>of chemical cue to direct the growth of the utric or is it just a chance
>association? I wonder if they also feed inside the Heliamphora pitchers.
>Barry - any ideas?
Liane,
Purely theorizing, I doubt that any chemical signals are used---if the
Tepuis are truly so wet, chemical signals would probably get diluted into
ineffectiveness.
I suspect it is just a selection effect---runners into bromeliads make new
plants. Runners that miss bromeliads do not---the net result is a method
of propagation. This is very interesting though---I wonder if the host
bromeliads clump, thereby making the propagation method more effective...
Hmm.
Barry