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. 35 July 5, 1992 Address: aceska@cue.bc.ca Victoria, B.C. ------------------------------------------------- PHANTOM ORCHID (EBUROPHYTON AUSTINIAE) IN VICTORIA From: A. Ceska This year was a bumper crop year for phantom orchid in the Victoria area. We counted 34 to 39 plants on one site, and two and six plants on two other sites. In spite of this abundant occurrence all flowers fell off without setting fruit. We are at the northern limit of the phantom orchid's distribution and I wonder, if we lack its pollinator(s). I have not done my homework (literature search etc.) and I would greatly appreciate any suggestion, literature citations, observations you can give me. AROUND VANCOUVER - HEMITOMES & CAREN RANGE From: Terry Taylor c/o Last Sunday I saw two populations of Hemitomes congestum [gnome-plant] beside two separate trails on the lower slopes of Grouse Mountain. Eric Damer at Golden Ears Park reports 3 populations flowering there - the well- known one at the Spirea Nature Trail, beside one of the campgrounds, and beside the trail to the Viking Creek Lookout. During the last few years it is being reported in this area much more often. The Heritage Tree Society asked me to go to the Caren Range [see BEN # 31] and make a plant list, which I did on July 1. Although there did not appear to be any rare species, I was very impressed with the incredibly open forest floor of this Tsuga heterophylla-Abies amabilis old growth forest. It is densely covered by Rhytidiopsis, and very large, flat patches of Sphagnum girgensohnii, with extensive Listera cordata growing in the Sphagnum. I do not recall ever seeing a forest area with this overall appearance, and hope it will be possible to prevent the logging of this site. PROCEEDINGS NEED HELP From: A. Ceska The Proceedings of the Conference on Endangered Species & Habitats in British Columbia (Vancouver 1991) is about to be published. Due to the lack of money only about 200 copies will be printed and they are all reserved for the two contributing B.C. Ministries (Forests & Environment), or the authors. It is sad to see a publication being out of print even before it is printed. The cost of a volume will be about $15.00 to 20.00. The botanical contributions: Rare aquatic vascular plants of B.C. (A. Ceska), Conservation status of marine plants and invertebrates in B.C (M.W. Hawkes), Endangered and threatened plants species of the Southern Interior of B.C. (E.C. Lea & G.W. Douglas), Rare and endangered alpine plants in B.C. (R.T. Ogilvie), Epiphytic lichens (T. Goward). A wide variety of zoological topics, problems of strategies and legislation for the protection are also discussed. I would like to find, how many people would like to buy a copy of the Proceedings. I would also be grateful, if you could give me some advice on where to look for the "seed money," in order to get more copies printed. RE: HYBRIDS - TIARELLA (BEN # 33) From: Don Norris (DNORRIS on BC gov network) Bill Parker of Lakehead University used to do chemical taxonomy and his results on spruce hybrids and balsam hybrids indicated that there were macroscopic integrades between members of the same genus, indicating hybridization; but when chemically analyzed, all specimens were clearly belonging to one group or the other. I believe he obtained similar results in black vs white spruce "so called hybrids". Perhaps Jack Maze at UBC could shed some more light on this technique. AC: Hybrids usually have the sum of all compounds found in the respective parents. E.g., if one parent has compounds ACDFG and the other parent BCGHL then the hybrid would have ABCDFGHL and sometimes something more. Anna Picman and Bruce Bohm studied flavonoids of Tiarella (Biochemical Systematics and Ecology 10[1982]: 139-143) and they found that T. laciniata has in fact fewer compounds than either T. trifoliata or T. unifoliata. I did not want to bring up this evidence, because the authors sampled only one population of T. laciniata. NITROGEN FIXATION IN SUGAR CANE Cross-posted from BNFNET-L list Gary Stacey: I have just returned [May 1992] from the American Society of Microbiology meeting that was held in New Orleans, LA. During this meeting, I had occasion to listen to the talk of Johanna Dobereiner concerning her work on nitrogen fixation in sugar cane in Brazil. She reported on the isolation of an endophytic Acetobacter strain that appears to play a significant role in providing nitrogen to sugar cane. During this talk, she made the surprising statement that Brazil is now recommending that sugar cane farmers not, yes not, use any nitrogen fertilizer on their crop. She showed a table that indicated that with specific cultivars (this effect was cultivar specific) there was no drop in yield between cuttings when the plants were not given nitrogen fertilizer. I was very impressed with these data and I wonder if I am missing something or if others have heard of this. Eric Triplett: Hello Gary. Yes, I have had many conversations with Dr. Dobereiner on her discovery of nitrogen-fixing sugar cane. IT IS VERY EXCITING! The data is very impressive and is supported by very solid N15 data. I first heard this story 2 years ago when I visited Rio. ... Shortly after learning this story in Rio, I heard a seminar by Anne Vidaver. She has found that perfectly healthy corn and sorghum plants contain lots of bacteria. She has no idea what they are doing. We should make a big push in the USA to get nitrogen- fixing corn. I think it is no longer "pie in the sky" research. The Brazilians have also noticed a significant cultivar effect with their endophytic nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Those lines of sugar cane which were bred under high nitrogen fertilizer conditions do not fix nitrogen with Acetobacter. [For more information on the nitrogen-fixing Acetobacter see Plant and Soil 108(1988): 23-31 and 137(1991): 111- 117. - AC] NEW PUBLICATIONS Barth, F.R. 1991. Insects and flowers: The biology of partnership. Princeton Science Library, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. 408 p. [paperback] ISBN 0-691-02523-1 Cost: CDN$ 17.95 [This is a paperback edition of the English 1985 translation from German 1982 book "Biologie eiener Begegnung: Die Partnershaft der Insekten und Blumen." The author is Professor of Zoology in the University of Vienna.] TRULY CANADIAN DEFINITION OF A TRUE BOTANIST "The true botanist knows a tree as soon as he sees it. He learns to distinguish it from a vegetable by merely putting his ear to it." -- Stephen Leacock