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From Newsletter 75 - August 2014

Visit to Ibes

As announced in the prior notice for this newsletter, we shall be visiting the Ibes nursery on Saturday September 21st.

Autumn meeting

We are using this newsletter to remind you (as in the prior notice) that our autumn meeting this year will be held in the conservatory of the Utrecht Botanical Garden on Sunday, September 21st, 2014. This is in contrast to the date that had been agreed earlier, and stated on the last page of Newsletter 73 (May), of October 19th. Our apologies for the change and we hope that, nonetheless, you will all come to Utrecht on September 21st!

If you can, pass on this change on to each other. We hope you will be able to take part. Everyone is welcome from 10a.m. on. There will be coffee, tea and biscuits and, as usual, until 11a.m. there will be time to greet one another, catch up on the news, admire the plants and so on.

Fig. 1 & 2 Aechmea fulgens var. fulgens, photos E.J. Gouda

At about 11a.m. we shall have a short housekeeping meeting, That will be followed by a discussion of the plants members have brought to show and of selected plants from the Botanical Garden.

Agenda Housekeeping Meeting

1. Welcome, announcements, mail received
2. Financial
3. Report of the Spring Meeting on April 6th, 2014; Newsletter 73
4. Evaluation of the visits to the Hortus Botanicaus in Leiden (Newsletter 74) and to the Ibes nursery on September 13th, 2014.
5. Fixing the dates for the meetings in 2015
6. Possible excursions in 2015
7. Any questions

During lunch we shall be raffling plants members have brought and donated to the society. There will also be various tillandsias to be raffled which came from the legacy of a member of the Orchid Society 'Orchideeënvereniging Noord-Holland-Noord'.

Fig. 3 - 5 Racinaea insularis, photos E.J. Gouda

After lunch our chairman will present a short slide show, as it was sent us by the Bromelia Society of San Diego (U.S.A.). See Newsletter 73, the report on our spring Meeting. After that, Piet van Beest will take us on a trip through Venezuela!

We hope to be able to welcome you on September 21st.

With friendly greetings

on behalf of the Board

Roel Tomassen

Eric Gouda, plant portraits and layout

Plant portraits

Aechmea fulgens var. fulgens

This is of course a well-known species from Pernambuco, Brazil that is found in many collections. One also often sees the discolor variant, with purple undersides to the leaves. It is in any case a very noticeable and spectacular plant with its blood-red inflorescence and white-edged violet petals (see fig. 1 & 2). The leaves have a chalky white wax layer on the underside which gives off.

Racinaea insularis and fraseri

The only member of the Bromeliaceae to be found on the Galapagos islands is Racinaea insularis (see fig. 3-5). This species is most closely related to the much larger and more spectacularly coloured Racinaea fraseri, also from Ecuador and shown below (fig. 6-8). All Racinaea species have small flowers.

Fig. 6 - 8 Racinaea fraseri, photos E.J. Gouda

Translation: MaryRose Hoare

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