My recent expedition to the Tepuis has finished, so it’s high time to start uploading some pictures.
Before getting to Venezuela, we were lucky to be the first group since 2006 to visit the remote natural habitats of Drosera amazonica in the tributaries of Rio Cuierias, northwest of Manaus, Brazil.
After an early departure (4:30 AM from Manaus port on Rio Negro) and about 4 hour long boat trip, our driver Turo managed to navigate us exactly to the same spots Fernando Rivadavia had discovered earlier in 2006.
The sun was scorching and getting to the site required some trekking through thick rainforest shrubs, but eventually we managed to find habitats housing thousands of little Sundews shining red in the sunlight. The Droseras were accompanied by overwhelming amounts of Utricularia subulata, as earlier reported by Fernando.
In addition to the species already known from this habitat, we were lucky to spot a few Utricularia tenuissima plants – a relatively rare Bladderwort which hasn’t been known to occur in that place yet. Our first discovery to start an epic expedition!
After a delicious lunch prepared by our boat driver – Pacú fish straight from a fire – we were ready to head back to Manaus, hungry for our upcoming journey to Venezuela.
Many thanks to Fernando for providing us the location data of the sites!
Mateusz