Greg Ruckert lives - just.

[Greg Ruckert]

Hi All.
My apologies for posting this to the list but many of you have tried to
contact me without response.
I have some 2,500 emails awaiting response so obviously some (many) of them
will miss out on a reply.
Rumours of my death have been exaggerated.
My apologies to all who have sent me emails without response.  Life has not
been much fun since my return from China with sending of my luggage to
Taiwan instead of Australia (including the seed),  the death of my father,
problems getting the December issue of the Areae Journal printed and a
period in hospital after a plasma donation went wrong.  Having spent the
weekend with Rob McClure at Womad here in Adelaide I have now been given the
medical clearance, subject to another check up in April.
To those waiting - ever so patiently - for their seed from the 1998
expedition, it will be going out on Friday.  All that is left to do is
generate the labels.  The Journal will also be going out on Friday.
One of the other things to come through while I was out of circulation is
the details of this year's expedition.  I will not be offering seed shares -
instead I am looking for people to join the trip.  I have been advised that
it will be approximately 2 weeks on the Vietnam/Yunnan border and 2 weeks in
the area that I nicknamed Arisaema heaven.  It will be in flowering time!
You are invited to join the expedition which will occupy the whole of July.
The object of the expedition is to survey the Araceae of the areas, collect
herbarium specimens for Kunming as well as living material for the new
Arisaema collection in Kunming Botanical Garden and the Australian Areae
Collection.  Any seed collected on the trip will be shared among the
expedition participants who will also receive seed entitlements to the
living material brought back to Australia.  Once last year's seed has gone
out I will get a web page up and notify the group.
Cheers
Greg Ruckert
Australian Areae Collection
http://www.ezi-learn.com.au/areae/default.html