I woke up early the following morning, already ticking to my usual hectic CP trip routine, where the old saying “time-is-money” becomes “time-is-new-species-of-CPs”! This always drives any accompanying friends of mine mad, but this time I was alone so no problem. I got up at 7am and was already out in my car and leaving around 10 minutes later. The Chapada dos Veaderios was around 4h away by car, so I decided to spend the extra hours exploring around Brasília.

Using my road guide to Brazil, I aimlessly headed west, hoping to find interesting CPs once outside the city. Driving through a residential neighborhood, still very close to the city center, I saw a nice hillside by the road. It looked rather dry and its proximity to the city indicated that I would most likely NOT find any CPs there. But at the beginning of all CP trips I'm always a lot more impetuous and still have the patience to stop at every single place that shows any glimmer of CP potential.

Not expecting much, simply acting on an impulse, I grabbed my backpack, left the car under a light morning drizzle, passed through a barbed wire fence, and began climbing the hillside. I was barely paying attention to the ground, which is not very wise, considering I'm partially colorblind and have trouble seeing small reddish Drosera. Trying to keep my balance on the steep incline with loose rubble which was slippery because of the drizzle only took up more of my attention. But suddenly I slipped and my face came closer to the ground, which was when I finally spotted the Drosera.

So there I was, at around 7:30 in the morning, standing on a slippery hillside full of Drosera in the middle of Brasília, under an irritating drizzle. Not exactly the scenario I'd imagined myself in for the discovery of a new species! What I found were reddish-green loose rosettes with spoon-shaped leaves flat on the ground, erect scapes covered with long white hairs, and bearing dark pink-lilac flowers, which were unfortunately closed because of the bad weather. It was obviously something in the D.hirtella-complex, but what?

I then remembered this plant from the Chapada dos Veadeiros, where I had seen it a few years before. Only back then I had thought it was a hybrid between D.hirtella var.hirtella and D.colombiana, since it is somewhat intermediate between these two taxa and because it was growing in a habitat located right between the habitats occupied by the two hypothetical parent species.

So when I spotted this plant again on the hillside in Brasília, I immediately began searching for D.hirtella var.hirtella and D.colombiana. Although I know from herbaria that both species are present in the Brasília area, I could find no signs of either species on that hillside. It was then that it became clear to me that those plants were not hybrids, but actually something taxonomically new! Since a new taxon is only truly discovered the moment someone realises it is new (many people will trample over a new species before anyone actually stops to take a closer look and realises it’s new), I guess I could say I discovered a new Drosera inside the city of Brasília. I wonder when was the last time a new plant species was discovered inside a city, or better yet, inside a country's capital?

Anyways, as always things weren't so simple on that hillside. This new Drosera --which I'm calling D.sp."white hirtella" for the moment -- was growing together with D.montana var.montana. It was a bit confusing first of all because I had never found, and never expected to find, D.montana var.montana so far west. Secondly, it was a bit hard to differentiate flowerless specimens of both taxa and there’s the remote chance there may have been some hybridization.

D.montana var.montana usually has wine-red leaves pressed very flat on the ground, the scape covered with large glands, and with large dark pink-lilac flowers. Like all the taxa in the D.hirtella complex, D.montana var.montana grows in habitats which usually become bone dry in the winter (dry season). The rosettes die out, but the plants survive as dormant roots until the rains return.

After exploring the whole area, I got back into the car, drove another 500m, stopped at a similar hillside and found plenty of D.sp."white hirtella" in flower, growing in the same pebbly, brick-red lateritic soil, among sparse grasses. I then continued driving west and only stopped again a few dozen kilometers ahead when I noticed that the previously hilly countryside was changing to a flat savanna, where CPs are usually rare. So I turned back and explored two or three interesting places I had seen along the way.

Only one of these turned up CPs, growing in and around a seepage among grasses. I had spotted several tall ‘buriti’ palm trees – a sure sign of a natural spring or flooded grassland. I found D.communis, Genlisea repens, and Utricularia nana -- all typical CPs of ‘buriti’palm habitat. Heading back to my car, the ground became drier and the grasses sparser. In this area bordering the wet seepage I found a beautiful form of D.hirtella var.hirtella. It had large robust rosettes with wide spatulate leaves which were a bright light-green, although the plants were under full sunlight. The strikingly ascending scapes, with a deep curve at the base, were also very robust. These were colored a deep red, as were the crisp hairs which covered the lower two-thirds of the scapes. What a beauty! Unfortunately none of the pink-lilac flowers were open.

I then headed northwest, hoping to explore some high mountains shown on my road map. I drove around this area only briefly. Although it looked promising, I would have to leave those hills for a future trip, since the good CP habitats were a long distance from the road up on the escarpments and I simply didn’t have the time that day. So I turned around and headed northeast past the town of Formosa to the Itiquira Falls, the highest in the state of Goiás with a drop of 150m, if I remember well. It was really nice, but no CPs. From there, I drove to the Chapada dos Veadeiros, where I found so many CPs that it would take several articles for me to describe everything I saw...

I was back again in Brasília in April 1999 for a friend's wedding. Of course I took the opportunity, before, during, and after the wedding, to visit the above CP sites again as well as explore for new locations. I wish someone had taken a picture of me hiking through the tall grasses of a boggy seepage while still dressed in a suit and tie, right after the wedding!!

Anyways, around Brasília I found more D.hirtella var.hirtella, D.communis, D.montana var.montana, but couldn't find any other D.sp."white hirtella" sites. I saw some very interesting herbarium specimens at the University of Brasília of what appeared to be robust D.sp."white hirtella" from an area not far from the city. But unfortunately these collections were a bit old and the area has developed somewhat since. I drove around for a few hours stopping at a few places, but came up empty-handed.

At another area not too far to the south of Brasília, something similar happened. I was searching for a widespread new species I call D.sp."Emas" which had been collected in the area in the 60's. But unfortunately that area had also developed a lot and the only bog I found had plenty of D.communis, but no D.sp."Emas". I also found several Utrics there, including the bluish-flowered U.tricolor, the minute yellow-flowered U.nana, the affixed aquatic U.trichophylla with yellow flowers, and tons of the beautiful aquatic U.cucullata with bright pink blossoms.

Elsewhere in the Brasília area I found two small yellow-flowered species of Genlisea: G.repens and G.filiformis. The former is a perennial commonly found as an affixed aquatic while the latter is an annual found in sandy soils. Both are very common and widespread species in Brazil.

Next time I go to Brasília, I want it to be around January, which is a good time to catch the early-flowering annuals such as D.colombiana. Like I've said above, I know this species has been found in the area, but have always been too late in the season to catch it. Nonetheless it is rare and will be very difficult to find. Wish me luck!