Day 15: 2nd day in Anjozorobe reserve

At dawn I am surprised by shouts coming from the forest, just in front of my bungalow.
In fact it is  lemurs indri which "communicate"!!!
...fact a pleasure to hear that...
 

We take advantage of this last day in a forest and our eayes search the smallest nook in search of orchids.
 

During our ride we cross wet primary forests, but also drier, but each time we are lucky to find blooming orchids.

Aeranthes nidus

Angraecum clavigerum

Here the forest doesn't suffer too much of devastating fires we saw during our trip.

Even if of course near from the villages, there is no more forest but rice fields, ,the culture is reasoned and here everybody is aware of the role of this reserve and of the interest of its conservation today.

Angraecum dryadum et Polystachia bicolor

Oeonia rosea et Polystachia mautiiana

 

The day ends, the trip also because we leave our last primary forest. By returning to the lodge, we cross a last small chameleon hided in the grass.

Angraecum atlanticum, A new species from Gabon and Equatorial Guinea

Little known Angraecums - The Genus in Central Africa with a focus on two sections

Molecular systematics and evolutionary trends and relationships in the genus Jumellea

A new species of Angraecum sect. Conchoglossum from Cameroon and Gabon

Discovery of a New Cryptopus (Orchidaceae) Species in Madagascar

Diversification of Angraecum in Madagascar

Molecular systematics and evolutionary trends and relashionships in the genus Jumellea

Alphabetical one-table list of genera and intergeneric combinations

Differences between Jumellea rossii and Jumellea fragrans

New species and new names in Malagasy orchids (Hermans & Cribb, 2016)

Addition to the orchid flora of tropical Africa

Angraecum darainense / Aeranthes unciformis

Cryptopus and Neobathiea (in french)

Angraecum jeannineanum

Day 14: the Anjozorobe reserve

The end of our trip is close, but we still have nevertheless to spend two days in the  Anjozorobe Reserve, which is in hundred kilometers in the North East from the capital. This reserve, about 10 000 hectares, represents the last vestiges of the natural forests of the Malagasy highlands between the savanna and the east wet dense forest.
Since 1998, the NGO FANAMBY manages, with a ministerial approval, the remaining 40 % of the initial surface of this forest.

After a lot of nights spent under the tent, it is this time a magnificent lodge that waits for us, the Mananara lodge.

 

 

We live in individual bungalow, formed by a part hard containing the toilets on which is connected a tent canvas to form the bedroom.

The owner of this lodge, worried about questions touching the environment, set up some measures in this sense.
 

The hot water is supplied every evening at a set time, for every bungalow, thanks to individual boilers placed outside and fed by wood fires, when in the electricity supplied by a generator and is available only a few hours a day in ranges defined in advance.

In the afternoon we decide to go and look for orchids in a forest very close to the lodge, but we find some...
 

 

Disa buchenaviana et Cynorkis madagascarica

The lodge is situated in side of a hill, at the foot of which is a swampy zone where abounds a very nice-smelling plant of the family of the ginger

 

From this past wet zone, we penetrate quickly in the primary forest and we do not delay finding the first orchids in flowers there.

Angraecum sp.

 

Angraecum vesiculiferum et Bulbophyllum alexandrae

And typicals animals too...
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The night is close and we end our loop which will return us to the lodge, but before it we fall on a magnificent natural pond around which abound the bundles of papyri.

 

 

After a good meal, we go each in our bungalow for night deserved well before our big rideof the next day which will make us penetrate a little more profoundly into the reserve.

Usability tests of coconut's water in medium for in vitro propagation of orchids

As transplanting media, I often use Orchimax or P668, but I add some ingredients, as for example coconut water.
Coconut water is rich in potassium, various minerals and antioxidants, but what interest us is that it is rich in cytokinin, an hormone essential to the development of plants.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokinin

I have prepared three different media.
One with 3% coconut water, a second one with 7% and a third one with 11%.

In each medium I added NAA and IBA too, which are auxins, an other hormone "family"essential to the development of plants.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxin

I decided to do my tests with some Angraecum magdalenae's seedlings.

I have transplanted some seedlings in two flasks of each media.
I'll give them the same conditions, light and temperatures, and I'll see in the next weeks, months, the differences.

I shall try, if it is significant, to post photos of  the flasks weeks after weeks

To know if the packaged coconut water is as effective as the water from fresh green coconut, I have prepared a 4th media, with fresh coconut water in the same % than the 3rd media, in which I have transplanted A.magdalenae's seedlings too.

I freeze the surplus in an ice-cube tray to be able to reuse them when I shall need it.
Each ice-cube is made with 15ml of coconut water.

Some example of my orchids in vitro propagation

Two of my last sowings, from last June.
Angraecum dollii and Aerangis arachnopus, the pink variety

Some flasks with hundreds of seedlings, I'll have to replate soon...

Angraecum arachnites

Angraecum scottianum

And some flasks with seedlings nearly ready to be "outflasked"

Angraecum mahavavense

Aerangis mystacidii

Aerangis punctata

A really rare one, Oeonia volucris

Angraecum aloifolium Hermans & Cribb (1997)

Geographical origin:

Epiphyte in dry forests of West Madagascar (Mahajunga). Sea level.

  

Culture :
 

This Angraecum can be grow mounted or in pot with sphagnum or medium barks.During hot season you must give it a lot of water.

The secret to make it bloom is a rest period during winter.
No water at all from late Autumn to middle or end of winter and during this period it must have a lot of light.

If you have seedlings which are not old enough to be able to bloom, don't give them this rest period, let them grow.

 

 

TROPICOS
The Plant List
IOSPE
KEW

Day 13: return at Antananarivo

 

 

The day gets up hardly when we leave Fianarantsoa.

 

Our day program, to return on our steps of the first days, that means return at Antananarivo.

 

 

The journey is long and the road, although still in rather good condition, is also borrowed by the herds which are going to serve to feed for the inhabitants of the capital and by carts pulled by zebus, full of various foodstuffs or charcoal.
 

The more we approach the capital and the more we see some, everybody converges on the big city to try to sell of what he had with difficulty managed to produce.

 

Only one stop today, in a place well known by my friends because here we can find two very rare orchids!!

 

 

 

Cynorkis gibbosa et Liparis microcharis

 

At the end of the afternoon we arrive at the Villa Amy, where arrived our first day in Madagascar.
After a good diner, everybody go in his sleeping room to sleep in a good and real bed.
 

Malala has gone...

 

 

 

It is with regret that I have just learnt that Michelle ANDRIAMANAMIHAJA, creator of the world-famous company " Malala orchids ", left us April 6th of this year.

 

We knew each other since only decade, but I felt for her a big tenderness, but also a big gratitude for of what she made for years in favour of the orchids of Madagascar.

Naturally these orchids she sold them, but by making the effort to come from time to time to sell them in Europe, in spite of the administrative and financial difficulties , she allowed small collectors as me to have access to the Grail, to the Malagasy orchids which we see only in books and which so much make us dream.
 

Conscious of the wealth and the big diversity of the orchids of his island, Michelle welcomed so much that she could the specialists of any nationalities in journey in Madagascar and sometimes, under these shadehouses, some discovered a not yet described novelty.

 

A lot of new species have been discovered thanks to her.

During mu journey in 2011 in Madagascar, Michelle and her husband mari Raoul, had welcomed us at their home so my friends can discover her collection and see in flower some orchids which we did not have been able to see during three weeks spent in the Highlands.
 

Her installations of culture were "simple" because no need of greenhouse in Madagascar, it is simply necessary to protect the orchids of the ardent sun and the sometimes violent wind. Of simple wooden shadehouses are enough to grow and to obtain marvelous flowers !!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

But MIchelle was tired these past years...

Tired to see what her beloved island became, to see what the People made it undergo and maybe simply tired of a well charged life, its numerous working years in France and of her  pension  deserved well on her island where she and Raoul had chosen to return to end their life in conditions harder than what they had known in France for years.
 

Last September it is Raoul who went out and since the fatigue of Michelle went only by becoming more marked, until this April 6th of this year when she left us.

 

Relaying in peace Michelle now that you found Raoul and  thank you for all that you made for the Malagasy orchids, for the Malagasy cause ... I'll miss you!!!!