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Bromelia Contactgroep (BCG) P/a Botanische Tuinen Budapestlaan 17 3584 CD Utrecht ABN-AMRO IBAN: NL66 ABNA0421855185 tel.030-253 9281 |
From Newsletter 77 - November 2014
Report of the Autumn Meeting on Sunday September 21st, 2015.
35 Members of the BCG met together in the conservatory of the Botanical Gardens in Utrecht for this Autumn gathering. From 10am to 11am we chatted together and admired and discussed the plants people had brought. There were lots of plants brought for the raffle of later in the day.
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The housekeeping meeting started at 11 am with the Board represented by Eric Gouda, Chairman, Piet van Beest, Treasurer, and Roel Tomassen, Secretary. The Chairman greeted all the members and particularly the new members, the Van Driesches, a husband and wife from Deventer whose primary interest is the bromeliad family Tillandsia.
The next item was the finances. The Chairman pointed out the necessity of setting up an audit committee. Hans Willems and Gerard van Heusden were the first to offer their services. The treasurer said he would get in touch with them to arrange a meeting. He then referred to the society's healthy financial situation and asked those present for possible ways of spending part of the reserve. A number of questions and suggestions came up during the debate. The amount under consideration should not be overestimated. A respectable reserve should be retained against unexpected setbacks.
There need be no immediate concern about charges for the meeting facilities here in the Botanical Gardens. After various suggestions had passed review, such as making T-shirts with a BCG logo for all members (how to arrange?), making the bromeliad CD available to members at a discount (but both cost and circulation are already low) and sponsoring the Plant Protection at the German Bromeliad Society, the Chairman put the following proposal to the members.
As an affiliate of the Bromeliad Society International (BSI), USA, we, as society, could respond to the BSI's earlier call to sponsor the archive fund (BSI Archives Fund). The Chairman mentioned the BSI's call at the BCG autumn meeting on October 13th, 2013 (see Newsletter 70, November 2013). The members present on that occasion were reluctant to accede to the BSI's request.
There was, however, at that time insufficient clarity as to the financial leeway for our society to agree to such a request. Transferring the archive material of the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens to the University of Central Florida requires a very systematic and scientific approach. The Chairman knows the situation and the plan of action and considers it scientifically well founded. It is predominantly young scientists who want to work on this and for whom there will naturally be some associated costs. The members present then agreed to the Chairman's proposal to make a donation of € 500.
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There were no comments on the report (Nieuwsbrief 73, in Dutch) on the Spring Meeting of April 6th, 2014, and the minutes were therefore accepted. Then followed an evaluation of the recent excursions: the visits to the Hortus Botanicus in Leiden on May 24th 2014 (Newsletter 74) and to the Ibes nursery on September 13th, 2014 (no newsletter). As far as the visit to the Leiden Botanical Garden was concerned, it was clear that the trip, made by 22 of our members and led by Art Vogel, was a great success. The Chairman once again thanked Art. Recently, on September 13th, 13 of our members visited the Ibes nursery. Mevrouw Ibes's very warm, welcoming reception was, like the last time, greatly appreciated. The Tillandsia-lovers really did enjoy themselves. Contact will be maintained with Mevrouw Ibes concerning possible future visits. The nursery has plans for a reorganisation of the Tillandsia collection.
The dates for the 2015 meetings were confirmed . The Spring Meeting will be on Sunday April 12th while the Autumn Meeting will be on Sunday October 11th, 2015. Both will take place in the Conservatory of The Botanical Garden in Utrecht.
After this came a discussion of possible excursions for 2015. The Westermans from Uelsen in Germany, who were present at the meeting, agreed to host a visit to their bromeliad nursery on a Saturday in early 2015.
A visit to the Holm company in Bettburg Hau, Germany is being planned for a Saturday in the late summer or autumn of 2015. The members with get information on, and suggested dates for, both visits at a later date.
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In Other Business, Daan Smit asked about a new book (from France) called “Les Broméliacées” by Marcel Lecoufle, Albert Roguenant en Aline Raynal. The Board did not know of it. The Secretary offered to follow it up. Later: Daan Smit would be in France himself and would be talking to one of the authors.
There was then a question about the results obtained using granular bloom stimulators such as the one Pieter Bak distributed during the Spring Meeting to those interested. Roel Tomassen said that he had had success with some plants that were sufficiently mature to flower, among them Aechmea filicaulis, Aechmea cylindrata en Billbergia pyramidalis. The plants must be judged in advance to be sufficiently mature! The Secretary then stressed the newsletter 76, "Care for our plants" in connection with the many Tillandsias on the raffle table (fig. 8) that came from the estate of a recently-deceased member of the Orchid Society of North-Holland North. Ending the house-keeping meeting, the Chairman called for the members to send in pictures of (attractive) flowering plants from their collections. The photos could then be used to illustrate the newsletters.
The next thing to come was the review of both the plants members had brought and of several bromeliad species from the botanical garden. In succession we saw Tillandsia recurvifolia x stricta (fig.4), flowering magnificently after Eric Gouda had treated it with Ethrel; Tillandsia globosa, a red-flowered Brazilian species from Roel Tomassen; a natural hybrid of Tillandsia didisticha x T.lorentziana (fig.3); Tillandsia durangensis from Mexico; Tillandsia pseudomicans from Peru; Tillandsia capitata x fasciculata, another natural hybrid; an attractive Neoregelia smithii (fig.6) from Roel Tomassen; a Peruvian Tillandsia rudolfii originating from the Botanical Garden in Heidelberg; Tillandsia mollis; Canistropsis billbergioides (syn.Nidularium billbergioides), a red-flowered variety bred by Hans van der Hoeven; Orthophytum burle-marxii (fig.7), imported two years ago from Michael’s Bromeliads, USA. Ed Brinkkemper grew it in a South-facing window, so with a great deal of light, a gorgeous plant. Eric Gouda then showed a final branch with well developed seedlings of Tillandsia argentina. Finally, Gerard van Heusden's epiphyte trunks (fig. 5), with their variety of well-anchored bromeliad species, were much admired.
During the lunch break the many plants members had brought, together with the legacy Tillandsias, were raffled. Few members left without something interesting.
After lunch, the rest of the afternoon was divided into two parts. Firstly, the Chairman ran the slide show the Bromelia Society of San Diego in the US had sent to the Society (see Newsletter 73). The presentation gave us a good picture of the ways in which the various authors of the presentation cultivate their Bromeliad species in the San Diego region. Naturally the climatic conditions in California are very different from those in our Benelux but all the same our members thoroughly appreciated the slides.
After that, Piet van Beest took us all on a fantastic and very adventurous journey through Venezuela. Stunning flora and fauna, colourfully-dressed people, untamed rivers and immense waterfalls, lakes inviting one to a refreshing bathe in the tremendous heat but take care, voracious piranas and crocodiles are lurking! Almost unclimbable mountains and cliffs, impassable roads and paths, even the rusty old-timers everyone raced around in, every kind of thing came under review. Piet has a weakness for the country and is already planning a new trip through Venezuela. He will surely want to take us back there again too.
At the end of the afternoon, the Chairman closed this enjoyable Autumn Meeting by thanking Piet for his delightful presentation and wishing every one "a safe journey home and until next time"
Roel Tomassen
Eric Gouda, layout
Translation: MaryRose Hoare