Drosera flower colors
Fernando Rivadavia Lopes (ferndriv@usp.br)
Tue, 24 Oct 1995 02:39:58 -0500 (CDT)
A few months ago we discussed varying flower colors in Drosera,
as in the case of D.rotundifolia which had white flowers one year and
pink flowers the next. I've observed that most of the Brazilian Drosera
have light to dark pink-lilac flowers, which depends mostly on ecological
factors (sunlight, humidity, ??). Yet the petals in each flower are
always uniform in color. There are no flowers with white AND pink for
example.
The only exception is a new species similar to D.chrysolepis.
I've seen it 5 times in the wild and on the last occasion in July '95, I
saw that several plants had light-lilac flowers with the base of the
petals being a darker pink-lilac. This is the only Drosera I know of in
Brazil which has bi-colored flowers. Well, as I've said it depends on
ecological factors and the flowers may be a uniform light to dark
pink-lilac. Yet it is the only one which is capable of producing
bi-colored flowers.
Now my question is, does anyone know of any Drosera native to the
New World which is capable of doing the same. We all know there are
Drosera in South Africa and Australia which have very colorfully mixed
flowers, but I have never heard of one for the Americas. I believe the
North American ones do not have this characteristic, but am not familiar
enough with the species native to northern South America to affirm the
same. Jan, any botanical info on this? Or maybe Andreas and Joachim, who
have been to the tepuis, can answer for a few species. Has anyone else
been there or at least grows some of the species native to that area like
D.roraimae, D.esmeraldae, D.felix, D.arenicola, D.kaieteurensis, etc.?
Just a reminder, I'm not asking about species which may have one
color OR another, but one color AND another on the same flower.
Fernando Rivadavia
Sao Paulo, Brazil