Trip report - Cairns 2
Andy Falshaw (A.Falshaw@irl.cri.nz)
Tue, 27 Aug 1996 12:31:42 GMT+1200
Me again.
On Tuesday 20th august steve Jackson came and picked us up from our
motel and we set off to the sewage farm south of Cairns. "Wind the
windows up" was the call as we got nearer. The smell still got
through....
Just past the sewage farm the road turned right through a right angle
and beacme Jackson's Drive. This is an open road with scrubby swamp
on one side, and bush on half of the other side. Either side of the
road is a drainage ditch and a flat piece of land between the ditch
and vegetation. We started off on the right hand side of the road,
in an area will lots of Drosera spatulatha, burmannii and indica.
Seeing spatulatha and burmanii next to each other it was obvious that
burmannii is almost triangular whereas spatulatha is round. The
flower stalks on burmanii come straight up from the centre of the
rosette, those on spatulatha come out under the end of the leaves.
Both were deep red, growing in full sun.
Drosera indica was very different, a long stem with
dried out old leaves on, tipped with 6 or seven fresh dewy leaves.
The leaves are long and thin like a filiformis. The indicas were
mainly growing in grass and hard to spot with the sun at our backs;
then we turned round. I immediately made the comparison with the
backlit photo of filiformis in Schnells book (y'all know the one??).
The indicas seemed to glow with the sun coming through them and
really stood out from the grass and other plants. The indicas were
just about to flower. The plants were up to 6 inches high and maybe
as long again in horizontal stem.
The ground was mainly gravel or fine mud, with plants abundant in
some damp spots, and also in some dry spots - presumably wet just
below the surface. Some dry spots were totally bare.
As well as drosera there were terrestrial utrics. There were lots of
yellow utric flowers, from u. bifida, fewer purple flowers of u.
caerula. There were aslo some paler purple flowers which steve
thought were a variety of caerula. As with the drosera these were in
damp and dry spots.
We crosssed to the other side of the road and Ruth found out just how
deceptive the ground was, looking solid but being mushy..
There were utrics and drosera on the left side of the road but not as
many. Steve said that the council has sprayed that side of the road,
but it seemd as though the cps were coming back just as vigorously.
We went to look for the "mystery utric" where steve had left a marker
last time he'd seen it. This wasn't flowering when we were there,
but apparently has pale purple flowers on very long stems, much
longer than the other utrics round there. "The photos are with Allen
Lowrie" and its unclear whether this is a new species or not.
Steve hopes it is and will be named after the location, ie Jackson's
drive.
The site has been sold and is earmarked for a factory! Steve, Trevor
and Kay as vice president, secretary and president of the local cp
soc branch are trying to see what can be done to save the site and
the plants, especially if the "mystery" is a new species.
A neat site with 6 easily seen cp species and one "mystery". As we
drove away i saw a dense patch of spatulatha/burmanii and we stopped
for a look. i stepped on a solid looking bit of ground and ended up
with mud all over me. Its a dirty business this cp-ing!!
Back past the sewage farm with the windows up, then to the golf
course. A very lush golf course next door to the sewage farm....
We walked through the course a bit to a bank next to a drainage ditch
come stream. From a distance the bank was deep red and as you get
closer it becomes clear why - its almost totally solid d. spatulatha,
a huge area densely covered in plants, amazing. Growing in the
damper areas round the stream and flowering profusely were the u.
bifida again.
>From there into Cairns and the Botanic gardens where steve works. In
the freshwater lake were 2 aquatic utrics - aurea(?) in flower with a
pale yellow flower, and another one (sp steve's unsure).
We then went to look at the Garden's cp collection - again masses of
neps growing outdoors under shade cloth. Then indoors cephalotus,
various drosera and utric longifolia and a round leaved utric - I'd
only ever seen utrics with tiny thin leaves before. And the first
ever heliamphora I've ever seen!! a heterodoxa. The sarrs and vfts
were in bags in the fridge again. They'd been in for 2 months and
had a month to go.
>From there we headed off round the gardens and to lunch at yorkey's
knob yacht club, very nice indeed.
we went back to steve's place for a coffee and leafed through his cp
books - looking at that photo of filiformis in schnell's book!
Again, a great day made possible by steve going to the effort to
drive us round and tolerate two fairly ignorant novice cpers.
THANKS STEVE
Non-cp bits about Cairns.
Just a couple of general comments about Cairns. If you ever get the
chance GO. besides the cps the forest is beautiful, the birds and
butterflies are fantastic, and the wether for the middle of winter
was beautiful -15c min at night and 28-30 in the days. We had a day
on the barrier reef and it was one of the most awesome natural
history experiences i've ever had. And how many cities can you see
pelicans and ospreys in? GO!
bye for now
Andy