BEN # 86

[Adolf Ceska]

BBBBB    EEEEEE   NN   N             ISSN 1188-603X
BB   B   EE       NNN  N
BBBBB    EEEEE    NN N N             BOTANICAL
BB   B   EE       NN  NN             ELECTRONIC
BBBBB    EEEEEE   NN   N             NEWS

No. 86                               December 28, 1994

aceska at freenet.victoria.bc.ca        Victoria, B.C.
-----------------------------------------------------------
 Dr. A. Ceska, P.O.Box 8546, Victoria, B.C. Canada V8W 3S2
-----------------------------------------------------------

NEW "LIVING FOSSIL" FIND IN AUSTRALIA
From: Ken Hill <Ken_Hill at RBGSYD.GOV.AU>
        originally on TAXACOM <TAXACOM at CMSA.BERKELEY.EDU>

A  small stand of trees that are considered to represent a third
living genus of Araucariaceae was discovered by New South  Wales
National  Parks  and  Wildlife  officers in late 1994. This, now
known as the "Wollemi Pine", occurs in a deep, very wet and very
sheltered gorge in the Wollemi National Park, in a rugged  moun-
tainous  area  within  200  km  north-west  of Sydney in eastern
Australia. With only about 20 adult trees in a single stand,  it
is  one  of  the  rarest trees in Australia. Of the other extant
Araucariaceae, it appears closest to Agathis, but  it  has  many
features  in  common  with  Cretaceous and early Tertiary fossil
groups such as Araucarioides. Staff of the  Royal  Botanic  Gar-
dens,  Sydney,  in conjunction with National Parks officers plan
to describe and name the new genus and species in  1995  in  the
journal  "Telopea".  Studies  of DNA and detailed morphology are
also in progress at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney,  together
with investigation of vegetative and tissue culture propagation.
It  is,  however,  unlikely that plants will become available in
less than two years.

[See the good article on it in the Thursday, 15  Dec.  New  York
Times.  Only  39  individuals (23 adults, some are large trees).
Illustrations show trunk,  distichous  "fernlike"  foliage,  and
cone.]

Another   recent   exciting  news  was  that  Gilbert's  Potoroo
(Potorous gilberti) was rediscovered  in  Western  Australia.  A
zoology  Ph.D.  student  trapped  one at Two Peoples Bay on WA's
south coast. They haven't been seen for over 100 years and  were
thought  long extinct. Two Peoples Bay is where the Noisy Scrub-
bird was rediscovered in the 1960s  again  after  being  thought
extinct.  Gilbert's  Potoroo  is  a  relative  of the Long-Nosed
Potoroo (Potorous tridactylus) which still exists in  reasonable
numbers  in eastern Australia. (Potoroos are small kangaroo-like
marsupials). Andrew Taylor


INVITATION TO CARNIVOROUS PLANT LISTSERV
From: dngess01 at vlsi.ct.louisville.edu (Don)

Anyone reading this is invited to  join  the  carnivorous  plant
listserve. To join, send the message:

sub cp First_name Last_name

Send this to the address:
listserv at opus.hpl.hp.com

By  the  way, south-west Australia has the largest concentration
of Drosera species in the world. Some people in  our  group  are
working  on  in-vitro  cultivation  of  Drosera. Anyone with ex-
perience in this area is invited to join  our  group.  There  is
also  a society, the International Carnivorous Plant Society. We
are always looking for people to write articles  for  the  quar-
terly  bulletin  and  to  supply seeds (especially Nepenthes and
Heliamphora) to our seed exchange.

If anyone wants to  join  the  International  Carnivorous  Plant
Society,  the  dues  are  $15  (U.S. dollars) per year for those
living in the USA or Canada; and $20 per year for  others.  Send
this to:

International Carnivorous Plant Society
Fullerton Arboretum
California State University, Fullerton
Fullerton, CA  92634
USA

To supply extra carnivorous plant seed to our seed exchange, the
address is:

Gordon Snelling
300 West Carter Dr.
Glendora, CA  91740-5915
USA


NEW MAILING LIST ON BIOLOGICAL CONTROL
From: Dan Freidus <freidus at biology.lsa.umich.edu>
          via entomo-l at uoguelph.ca

A  new  list on Biological Control have been set recently. It is
running from a listserver in Brazil, and even so  the  presenta-
tion  message  is  in  portuguese,  I don't believe will exclude
messages written in English or Spanish.

Subscription to this list can be done by sending the message

SUBSCRIBE BIOCONTROL-L Your_First_name Your_Last_name
to listserv at ftpt.br

The owner of the list is Sidnei de Souza <sidnei at ftpt.br> or Dr.
Luiz Alexandre Nogueira de Sa' at
EMBRAPA/CNPMA
C.P. 69
13.820-000 - JAGUARIUNA - SP


NATIVE WILDFLOWERS OF CALIFORNIA
From: Brother Eric Vogel <evogel at stmarys-ca.edu>

I am in the process  of  producing  a  CD-ROM  containing  2,000
pictures  of  665  species  of native wildflowers of California.
This is from a collection of 20,000 slides collected by  Brother
Alfred  Brousseau over his lifetime. It takes the form of super-
card stacks, a stack for each alphabetical (latin name) group of
flowers. The material has been sent out  to  a  commercial  disk
producer  and  I  am in the process of checking the "one off" CD
before having multiple disks stamped out. You need  a  Macintosh
with a minimum of 4 MB and 256 color capability.

I  have  available  a  sample (one card, with one flower) that I
could e-mail you. It is contained in a self extracting file  and
since  I  use  Eudora as an internet interface, Eudora "binhexs"
everything it sends out. If you are using Eudora, it will  auto-
matically  "binhex"  it back to the original form, otherwise you
need something like the program BINHEX4. The file  that  results
is  a  .sea  file  which  self expands upon clicking, yielding a
standalone super card stack which is viewed by  double-clicking.
The  file  is  about  650K  hence takes some time unless you are
directly connected to internet. I will gladly  send  it  to  you
upon  request. The CD-ROM should be available early January. The
CD results from a project whose purpose  is  to  distribute  the
work of Brother Alfred, and is non-profit, hence I am asking for
a $35.00 donation for the CD.

Brother Eric Vogel
Saint Mary's College
POB 5150, Moraga, Ca.  94575
(510)-631-4296
Internet:  evogel at stmary-ca.edu