BACPS 2014 Annual Show and Sale Part Two: Everything Else

In this post I'll share a few more photos from the recent Bay Area Carnivorous Plant Society Show and Sale. In part one I posted about the winners of the juried show.

The event was held at the Lake Merritt Garden Center (I didn't get pictures of the surroundings, so have a GIS). It was a really nice day out, but inside the garden center it was pretty warm and humid, being full of people and plants breathing all over each other. There was a really good turnout!

Lots of people buying plants! Sometimes it was too crowded to move around, which is great!

Most of the plants on offer were Nepenthes and Sarracenia – there was a decent, though not enormous, selection of sundews, and just a few pings. I think I saw a handful of Utricularia as well. I just ended up getting 3 plants, which I'll share at the end of this post.

Sarracenia everywhere.

These were reasonably-priced plants, but some of the rarer offerings were hilariously pricey.

Almost makes me wish to be a Nepenthes grower – but not quite :-p

I also had a few more photos from the Show. Here's the Dish Garden table.

Such nice plantings.

My pictures of the ping and sundew tables were ruined by the light from the window. Oh well.

I wish I had recorded the identity of that big vining plant.

Hamatas! I think these were grown by Drew Martinez.

There were also loads of Sarracenia in the show. They took up a whole wall and then some!

I can't imagine having to judge all these Sarracenia.

As I said, I only got three plants at the show –  two pygmies, Drosera callistos and Drosera enodes Scotts River, and Drosera admirabilis.

These D. callistos will have big orange flowers. Cute!

I like stem-forming pygmies, like these D. enodes.

Finally a positively-identified D. admirabilis. Charming plant!

So much fun! I can't wait for next year.

BACPS 2014 Annual Show and Sale Part One: The Juried Show

I was sitting down to put together one post about the BACPS Annual Show and Sale, and I realized that it was way too big for one post. Instead, this post will be of the juried show winners. A subsequent post has a description of the event and other pictures. The categories for the show were as follows:

• Art
• Terrarium/Dish Garden
• Butterwort (Pinguicula)
• Sundew (Byblis, Drosera, Drosophyllum, Roridula)
• American Pitcher Plant (Sarracenia)
• Tropical Pitcher Plant (Nepenthes)
• Other Pitcher (Darlingtonia, Heliamphora, Cephalotus, Brocchinia)
• Aquatic (Utricularia, Genlisea, Aldrovanda, Polypompholyx)
• Venus Fly Trap (Dionaea)

 I have names/species for almost all the entries. When the BACPS publishes the results I'll update this post with any corrections.

Let's jump into it! The entries were truly fantastic – I've never seen so many beautiful plants all together in one place.

Art

First: Utricularia humboldtii flower at Mt. Roraima, photograph, Arthur Yin

Second: Sarracenia leucophylla, watercolor, Dana Gardner

Third: Nepenthes, metal sculpture, Benjamin Bailey

Terrarium/Dish Garden

First: Dish Garden, Stephen Davis

This amazing entry deserves a second photo. The dish is about 2 and a half feet (~75 cm) in diameter, and the plants are growing on a lovely mound. The border is fine sand.

Second: Dish Garden, Mixed Species, Dana Gardner

Third: Ping Trio, Doris Quick

Butterwort (Pinguicula)

First: Pinguicula gypsicola, Matt Byers

Second: Pinguicula immaculata,  Arthur Yin

This plant is 4 years old.

Third: Pinguicula moranensis, Doris Quick

Sundew (Byblis, Drosera, Drosophyllum, Roridula)

First: Drosera burmannii, Devon Peterson (that's me!). Also second in show.

Second: Drosera regia, Drew Martinez

This is another stunning entry that deserves two pictures. It's the dewiest sundew I've ever seen.

Third: Drosera spatulata, Charlie Simpson

 American Pitcher Plant (Sarracenia)

There's a bit of confusion for me in the 2nd and 3rd place winners. They're by the same grower, but appear to have the labels confused (I have pictures of the labels that I'm not including here). According to the labels, second place is S. purpurea venosa x flava ornata, and third place is just S. purpurea. I think it's the other way around. I'm going to label them based on my instincts, but call me out if you think I'm wrong.

First: Sarracenia hybrid, Larry Logoteta

Second: Sarracenia purpurea, Dana Gardner

Third: Sarracenia purpurea ssp. venosa x flava ssp. ornata, Dana Gardner

See what I mean about the labels?

Tropical Pitcher Plants (Nepenthes)

First: Nepenthes lowii (Kinbalu), Tom Kahl. Also third in Show.

Second: Nepenthes macrophylla x lowii (natural hybrid), Drew Martinez. This is the worst picture I took of a winning plant, and I'm sorry.

Third: Nepenthes maxima x talangensis 'Lady Pauline', Will Haines

Other Pitcher (Darlingtonia, Heliamphora, Cephalotus, Brocchinia)

First: Darlingtonia california, Chris Lew

Second: Heliamphora neblinae, Drew Martinez

Third: Heliamphora neblinae x hispida, Arthur Yin

Aquatic (Utricularia, Genlisea, Aldrovanda, Polypompholyx)

First: Utricularia alpina x endressii, Matt Byers

Second: Utricularia calcyfida 'Asenath Waite', Matt Byers (along with hitchhiking Byblis)

Third: Utricularia humboldtii, Arthur Yin

Venus Fly Trap (Dionaea)

There's also a bit of confusion in the ribbons shown in this category. The ribbons for first and second place were mis-arranged when I took these photos. Later on in the show they had been swapped, and Fernando Rivadavia (one of the judges) confirmed on Facebook that Larry's D. muscipula 'Ginormous' was actually the first place winner, and Dana's D. muscipula 'Jaws' took home the second. They're both beautiful plants in any case!

First: Dionaea muscipula 'Ginormous', Larry Logoteta

Second: Dionaea muscipula 'Jaws', Dana Gardner

Third: Dionaea muscipula, Benjamin Bailey

Best in Show

As I said, it was an amazing show. I'll end this post with a recap of the Best in Show winners, with the Dish Garden by Stephen Davis, my Drosera burmannii, and Tom Kahl's Nepenthes lowii in First, Second, and Third respectively.

Amazing plants, and congratulations to all the winners.

Thanks to Josh Brown and Fernando Rivadavia for helping me out with some names and clearing up some earlier confusion. Updated 7-9-14 with info from BACPS Spring 2014 Newsletter.

We had a big day today

I'm pretty tired after a long, fun day at the BACPS Annual Show and Sale, so this will be a brief post, but I just wanted to share one thing...

What an amazing surprise! I was tickled pink.

My Drosera burmannii that I've been growing so carefully really pleased the judges! I got first place in sundews, and second place in the show over all. I'll make a larger post in the next couple days (there were so many spectacular plants for sale and at the show) but for now I just wanted to celebrate here on the blog. Thanks to everyone who had nice words for my plants – I never expected them to do so well. It was really an honor :)

BACPS Spring 2014 meeting

The Bay Area Carnivorous Plant Society meeting was held Saturday at the UC Botanical Garden. I'm a UCBG member, and try to visit whenever possible.

Yucca rostrata at the UCBG entrance.

On this day the guy working the entrance saw the Drosera burmanii I had brought for the bring and brag and pointed me towards the BACPS meeting. Because I was headed to the meeting, I avoided my typical first stop, the spectacular Arid House.

The UCBG Arid House, home of insane, spectacular plants.

If you live in or occasionally visit the Bay Area you must make time to visit the UCBG. It's a truly astonishing garden.

In any case, I got to the meeting a bit early, and sat around chatting with a few folks before the things got started. I also traded a smallish D. filiformis Florida All-Red leaf cutting for a few stems of Utricularia gemniscapa with Howard, who I met on TerraForums and who blogs about carnivorous plants (in Japanese) at tanukimo.blogspot.com. Use Google Translate – it's interesting to read if you like Utrics (like I do).

A bit before 11 the folks from California Carnivores arrived and set up shop. The BACPS members swarmed their tables before they even got the plants out of the box for display. I think I overheard Damon make a joke about setting up barricades to hold back the zombies, and that's pretty much what I felt like.

Shamelessly swarming around the vendor table. I was right there with everybody.

Most of the plants for sale were temperate and pygmy sundews, VFTs, and some truly beautiful Sarracenia. I allowed myself one plant, a very fine Sarracenia x 'Abandoned Hope'.

The presentations for the meeting were a talk by Damon Collingsworth of California Carnivores and Barry Rice of (among other things) Sarracenia.com about preparing one's plants to enter into the show in June, and a slideshow by Damon about Venus Flytraps in the wild. The presentations were lots of fun!

Barry Rice and Damon Collingsworth talking about preparing plants for the annual show.

Slide of a Venus flytrap that ate a frog. Nice catch!

After the talks we had the Bring and Brag. I showed off my D. burmanii Humpty Doo, and received compliments from a number of people (including Fernando Rivadavia, which was cool). We also saw this funny pair of Pinguicula cyclosecta, one of which has dormant winter leaves, while the other is already in full carnivorous summer foliage.

I loved the color on these P. cyclosecta. And it's cool to see the different leaves side by side.

Also they were planted in this funny pot. How cute!

The auction came next, and then the raffle. Several large Heliamphora heterodoxa x minor divisions brought in a pretty penny. At the raffle I got a Sarracenia leucophylla (Hurricane Creek, AL) and a small pot of D. scorpioides.

This division went for like $30. I'd like to grow Heliamphora someday, but right now it's a bit much for me.

After this I hung around a bit more, convinced myself not to buy another Sarracenia, and then headed home. It was a lot of fun, and I came away with a few new plants and the desire to grow more to share at the next auction. Here's the final count at home.

Clockwise from back left, Sarracenia leucophylla (Hurricane Creek, AL), Sarracenia x 'Abandoned Hope', Drosera scorpioides, Utricularia gemniscapa, mixed Utricularia.

 And because that's not a particularly lovely photo, I'll leave you with this Dudleya pulverulenta, which was so large and so glaucous that it stopped me in my tracks, arms full of plants, to take a picture. That's what the UCBG is all about.

This Dudleya is like 18 inches in diameter. What a wonderful plant.