More pitchers:
Aren't these
Sarracenia rubra subsp. rubra pitchers pretty?
As we walked around The Green Swamp islands, we
saw many Venus Flytraps, Drosera, a few
Utricularia juncea and
U. subulata, and Sarracenia flava. Some of the
Sarracenia flava were subsp. cuprea
(i.e. "copper-lids"). I noted with interest that the
belief that such plants lose their copper-lid coloration later in
the season was clearly incorrect--the lids on these plants (both
old pitchers and new pitchers that were produced late in the
season)--were very dark and coppery. Alas, I didn't take many
photographs (and none worth putting on the web) because I was spending
most of my time just looking around.
If you are curious about where we saw these great
Sarracenia flava subsp. cuprea, I could never
tell you. Frank took me on some weird dusty back roads, which led to
foot trails and finally some tricky hopping through mud patches.
So don't think you can casually go to The Green Swamp and see
these plants. The easy to find ones have already been poached.
Frank showed me a few Sarracenia minor plants--a very rare plant in
The Green Swamp. We noticed some poaching here, too. Someone had
stolen two plants from this part of The Green Swamp
conservation area, leaving only five. Dammit!
Frank related a story I particularly liked about some people he showed
around The Green Swamp. He led them around because they promised they
would not
field collect. At the end of their their day-long trip, these people
and Frank parted. But instead of going home, these people immediately
doubled back to The Green Swamp to poach--at night!
The idiots got lost, and called Frank from The
Swamp via cell phone. "Help! We're lost!" If you ever meet
Frank, ask him for the full story. He was nicer about it than I
would have been.
I would have let them rot in The Swamp.
