Carnivorous Plant Hall of Fame and Remembrance

Eric Green was a well-known carnivorous plant enthusiast extraordinaire who has left a lasting legacy on the world of carnivorous plants. Not only has he greatly increased the knowledge and understanding of native carnivorous plants of South Africa, he also made a significant contribution to the knowledge of their cultivation.

Eric lived in Cape Town and developed a passion for carnivorous plants in a region rich in indigenous Drosera species, but a scarcity of local CP enthusiasts. As a result, he established a wide network of communication and trade with numerous CP fanatics around the world back in the days before internet, building up an impressive private collection. He was a very skilled grower, not only of native South African species, but of all genera of carnivorous plants. He successfully cultivated plants that were quite rare at the time such as Heliamphora and highland Nepenthes.

Thanks to Cape Town’s pleasant climate with mild, humid, and frost-free winters, as well as warm, dry, and sunny summers, Eric was able to build up a large and diverse plant collection that also included Sarracenia species and hybrids, pygmy Drosera, Byblis gigantea, tuberous Australian sundews, Drosophyllum, Roridula, Mexican Pinguicula, tropical Drosera, Nepenthes species and hybrids, Heliamphora species and hybrids, Cephalotus, and tropical Utricularia, VFTs, and of course the numerous and beautiful native South African sundews. Thanks to Eric's willingness to explore native CPs as well as send seeds abroad, which were of course gobbled up by many enthusiasts who helped establish many of those species to cultivation.

For numerous decades, Eric explored the Cape area and amassed a great understanding of where the local carnivorous plants grew. He would often travel to these places on his motorcycle, and was keen to take visiting enthusiasts from overseas there too, or direct them to these places. During these field trips, Eric uncovered several sundews which were later described by botanists as new species, including Drosera slackii, D. rubrifolia, D. coccipetala, D. variegata, D.afra, D. liniflora, D. rubripetala, and D. atrostyla. Unfortunately, many of these botanical descriptions do not mention the original discoverer of the plant, which is just one of the many reasons why he deserved to have a new species named after him: Drosera ericgreenii.

Remembrances published in Carnivorous Plant Newsletter

• Farewell Eric Green — Fleischmann, Andreas and Robert Gibson and Fernando Rivadavia (PDF)
• Farewell Eric Green — Thomas Carow and Christian Dietz and Andreas Fleischmann and Robert Gibson and Fernando Rivadavia (PDF)
• Drosera ericgreenii - Eric Green’s sundew — Andreas Fleischmann (PDF)

Eric Green in the field at a Drosera regia site near Bainskloof, South Africa, in August 2003. Photo by Aric Bendorf.

Fernando Rivadavia (left) and Andreas Fleischmann (center) with Eric Green near Malmesbury, South Africa, September 2006. Photo by Fernando Rivadavia.

A group of Drosera ericgreenii in habitat near Franschhoek, South Africa. Photo by Andreas Fleischmann.