The Trip:
Most Darlingtonia sites occur within a short trip of the coast in
northern California and Oregon. A smaller number of sites occur well inland, and a very few sites occur in the Sierra Nevada
mountain range. For the last nine or so years, I have been studying the plants at a site in Nevada County, the southern-most
site of this plant still in existence. This site is privately owned, however the owners kindly do not object to my
continued studies of their site. (Over the years, I have developed a good relationship with the owners of this
Darlingtonia
bog, and the nonprofit organization that owns a conservation easement on the property.)
My preference would be to perform small manipulative experiments at the site every year. Unfortunately, my studies have
uninterrupted because
a careless rancher on a distant grazing site lets his cattle illegally trespass into this property and damage the
delicate wetlands. One year they managed to eat my entire experiment...but that is a different story.
This year, I was encouraged by the fact that the cattle had not trashed the site the previous year. It appears that the
Tahoe National Forest Service Staff
were actually taking their duties seriously and were showing concerns that their permittee rancher was
derelict in his actions! So I set up a set of experiments to examine the pollination mystery of
Darlingtonia. And as I noted in a short communication to the
International Carnivorous Plant Society's
publication (Rice 2006b) this year, I had a real surprise!
Start the photo-essay!
