Drosera sp. nova:
As we left, Dave discovered this plant. Extraordinary. It appears to be a tuberous
Drosera with a basal rosette, but also an erect vertical stem with, oh, flabelliform
leaves. CLEARLY this is a new species. We considered racing it to publication, but who would we name it after? Phill already
has a sundew named after him (D. mannii), there's already a
Drosera banksii (alas for Dave, named after a different Banks), and Beth's last name is
Salvia--there's a whole
genus with that name. So that left me.... But as we recalled there is already a plant of significant commercial value named
"rice", there really wasn't any point to publish this thing. We forgot about it.
Phill piloted us south, towards the town of Bunbury. Of course, since Beth and I are both fans of Oscar Wilde, we were both
excited at the prospect of becoming Bunburyists.