Overhead view:
From a view few tens of meters overhead (which I photographed from the slender top branches of an old lodgepole pine as it
swayed alarmingly in the wind), you get a good
understanding of the nature of the seep. Water percolates down the gentle slope, encouraging very high coverage by
Darlingtonia. A low woody shrub (Vaccinium uliginosum subsp. occidentale) is also common.
The bright green patches occurring here and there are openings filled with sedges,
grasses, Mimulus, and other herbaceous species. Why are these wet and apparently hospitable areas
inexplicably devoid of Darlingtonia and Vaccinium? Fire rarely but occasionally burns through the
bog (as evidenced by burnt stumps). Perhaps these open patches resulted from long-ago fires of high intensity?
