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The Tropical look


waykoolplantz

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I never met him, but his influential book caught me up in the tropical wave. Thank you Robert Lee Riffle.

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Kim Cyr

Between the beach and the bays, Point Loma, San Diego, California USA
and on a 300 year-old lava flow, Pahoa, Hawaii, 1/4 mile from the 2018 flow
All characters  in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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Loved that book as a kid along with The Encyclopedia of Cultivated Palms.  Love the way he describes plants, detailed and technical but also artistic and passionate. 

Edited by Xenon
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Jonathan

Katy, TX (Zone 9a)

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Robert Lee Riffle was not only the author of "The Tropical Look," but should also be credited with starting PalmTalk. Under the auspices (and funding) of the IPS, Bob and Mike Burnett started PalmTalk after Forums became the "go-to" vehicle for group discussion on the web - replacing newsgroups and message boards - in which a crude form of PalmTalk had already been in existence.

Bob handled the concept and moderating until his death in 2006. And Mike handled the administration of the software, etc. I took over for both shortly after Bob's passing in Aug of that year. Mike was a tremendous help during that transition. Mike later passed away in 2010. 

I had only communicated with Bob a few times via email about palms and PalmTalk, with never an inkling that I would eventually assume his role. I can still feel his spirit at times around here, and only wish I had met him personally.

His Display Name is/was "Robert Lee Riffle" and his posts are still here, exactly as he left them.

Paul Craft (an ex-President of the IPS and co-author with Bob on at least one book) notified all of us here on Bob's passing in this topic from 2006. A trip down memory lane and good reading.

 

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Thanks to those of you who help make this a fun and friendly forum.

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Where does Jana Meiser fit into all of this? My foggy memory remembers her setting up the forum in the early days and being the original moderator, up until Treestump came along.

Daryl

 

Gold Coast, Queensland Latitude 28S. Mild, Humid Subtropical climate. Rainfall - not consistent enough!

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I remember Mike Burnett used to moderate the old GulfBreeze website. I think it was at that website I first had online communication with Bob Riffle -- sometime in late 2002 or so. I think Bob was still living in Houston, Texas, at the time. 

A short time later Bob moved to White City, Florida. One day I posted photos of a large clump of Serenoa repens (some 25 feet tall) here on Palmtalk  (or whatever name it went by at the time). Bob was interested in seeing and photographing the Serenoa repens clump, as he wanted to incorporate photos of them in the Encyclopedia of Landscape Palms.  I think I lived about 74 road miles from Bob, and Bob asked me if he could drive over to my house, then have me take him to see the Serenoa repens. Bob did drive over and we drove over (above 5 miles away) to the Serenoa repens clump. Bob took many photos, two of them are in his and Paul Craft's book Encyclopedia of Landscape palms.

In June of 2003 my wife and I hosted the Central Florida Palm and Cycad Society's 2nd quarter meeting, garden tour, and palm sale.  Bob attended that meeting (photo below with Bob seated at table, with the late Dr. Merrill Wilcox standing with back to camera).

After that meeting I would  occasionally drive over to Bob's house in White City, and from there we would drive down to Loxahatchee to go shopping for palms at some of the nurseries.  I recall Bob took me to a nursery that was closing down (Bob knew the owner), and most of the palms were for sale at bargain prices. Bob was advising me on palms to get, etc., and my adrenaline was flowing like a kid in a candy store! Bob was the type of guy that, if you had a palm and tropical plant/tree hobby -- he only exacerbated it!

I was saddened when I learned of Bob's passing, and I missed reading his opinions and giving advice on palms and tropical plants/trees here at Palmtalk.

As for Mike Burnett, I never met Mike, but I used to correspond with him frequently by email and his website. Mike once sent me a nice package of small plants and palms I didn't have at the time.  Mike seemed like a very nice guy. I was also saddened to learn of his passing.

 

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Mad about palms

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On 3/24/2019 at 4:15 PM, Daryl said:

Where does Jana Meiser fit into all of this? My foggy memory remembers her setting up the forum in the early days and being the original moderator, up until Treestump came along.

Daryl

 

Perhaps someone knows more about her involvement than I do. I believe she was a "player" during the newsgroup phase (which I think might have been on Yahoo), and the very early days of the PT Forum - but had dropped off the forum radar before I joined PT as a member - which was about a year before Bob passed.

I believe I remember hearing about her being on the receiving end of some verbal harassment from "Treestump," (one of many names, and before we had the "anti-troll" tools we have today}, and that may have played a role in her becoming uninvolved. He caused me a fair amount of grief as well for a while there.

Thanks to those of you who help make this a fun and friendly forum.

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I've had his (Bob's Tropical Look) book for years, I frequently go back to it to reference different plants.  He did an excellent job helping us create that tropical look.  Very grateful for his work.

Lou St. Aug, FL

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