Time: Tuesday 11 June at 7.30pm (BST)
For this month’s talk with our highly respected speaker, Roland Reith, we venture into the fascinating world of Asclepiadoideae, a subfamily of plants in the family Apocynaceae.
Born in 1965 and recently retired, Roland has been collecting cacti for almost 50 years – specialising in South American cacti and also stapeliads or ascleps since 1989.
Roland started studying the flower structure and pollination of these fascinating plants back in the 1990s. Since the end of the 90s he has been doing manual pollinations every year, mostly under the microscope. Roland joined IG-Ascleps in 1999 shortly after it was founded and became chairman in 2012. Roland is now chairman/president of the International Stapeliad Group. He cultivates around 5000 cacti and 250 stapeliads/ascleps in two greenhouses and two indoor gardens: a collection worthy of much praise and perhaps some envy too.
We are very fortunate indeed to welcome a speaker of Roland’s calibre, with such experience and skill, especially in the field of these unusual and fascinating plants.
Plant photos by permission of Elisabeth and Norbert Sarnes.