Wild Sarracenia, Dews and other CP's in the Southeast

[sflynn]

That was another interesting thing about this particular site, it had almost no mature clumps, which was why Jim Burkhalter found it interesting in the first place and showed it to me. I have two explanations for this:
1. Most of the plants recently grew from seeds
2. These plants were located in a fire break, I believe the equipment they used to clear it chopped up the soil and all the plants in it, there by shredding the Sarracenia rhizomes and causing them to be spread out and recently sprouted from the rhizome bits

When I go back this spring I will take some pictures of the many more mature clumps that are found elsewhere

 

[NatchGreyes]

Huh, well, they do all appear almost the same age. It'll be interesting to see what you find when you revisit.

 

[sflynn]

Here's a few more random pics:

What may or may not be the only pitcher any of the yellow flowered S. leucophylla's produced last year, hoping for more this year


Some more S. leucophylla from the same bog




This has to be the most beautiful sarr flower I have ever seen, It is a hybrid flower from one of only two S. flava sites in Escambia county, FL. I believe this particular hybrid is a S. flava x leucophylla, but I'm not positive, either way, it's very pretty

 

[NatchGreyes]

That flower...oh wow! That is the best Sarr flower, ever.

 

[pappydew]

Absolutely gorgeous flower

 

[sflynn]

Thanks you guys, that's 'about' all the pics I have for now, but there will be many more this spring

 

[Joseph Clemens]

Your photos are wonderful. Thanks for sharing them.

It just stirs up heaps of nostalgia, reminding me of the 4-5 years that my parents and youngest brother were living in Fort Walton Beach and Valparaiso, and my seasonal visits with them there. My father worked as a government inspector at the nearby Eglin AFB.

Back then, the late 1980's, there were many CP throughout the area. It was a CP wonderland. Your photos remind me of what I would see, while hiking around the area, even Drosera and Pinguicula in my parents backyard.

My father once took me to visit one of his co-workers, a secretary. So I could see what was growing all around her apartment. He had told her about my interest in CP. She lived in an apartment complex. In the vacant lots all around her apartment complex, were CP. Various Pinguicula, Drosera, and Sarracenia species - it was beautiful. I only wish I had a camera with me at the time. The apartment complex was just a few blocks from highway 98 and the beach.

 

[sflynn]

Up next is my first big Sarracenia site from this year, it's a massive bog located in Walton county Florida and it has huge amounts of Sarracenia flava and Sarracenia psittacina, as well as Drosera capillaris and some Utricularia cornuta and Pinguicula planifolia. I'm going to sort the pictures in this post a little since there is a lot of pictures, I'll do the stuff that there is relatively few pictures of first and then post the S. flava pictures last so you don't have to sort through all of the S. flava pics to find on picture of P. planifolia!. So, here we go:

I'll start with some habitat shots just to show y'all the size and scale of the bog and the number of plants:

First up is Sarracenia psittacina these grow in large clumps throughout the bog, and there used to be many more of them but I believe they experienced some die offs after the last to winters:

You have to look closely but there are tons of forming fruits:

Next up are some Drosera capillaris "long arm", from what I've seen at this site the long arm genes are only active when the bog is flooded, when it dry's during parts of the summer the plants reduce the length of the petioles and look more regular:

Next up is some Utricularia cornuta:

Followed by Utricularia purpurea, this one was really difficult to get a good picture of:

Pinguicula planifolia, there used to be many more of these plants at this bog but this time there are only a few, I think a lot of them died last winter, but I also could of just not seen them, and this is the first time I have seen any of the plants at this bog turn red, usually they are either a bright or olive green color:

I'll post the Sarracenia flava in the next post

 

[sflynn]

Now come the Sarracenia flava, there is some amazing variation in S. flava at this bog so I'll try to group them by similarities, I'l start with the plants that had the most red and then finish with the plants that had almost no red coloration:

This one had a very ruffly lid:

Hope everyone enjoyed the photos! Sorry If I posted to many but I had over 300 originally so it was really hard to narrow them all down to just a few.

 

[Cthulhu138]

Super location with some gorgeous plants. I can't believe how close to the road this spot is. Great pics, thanks for sharing.

 

[sflynn]

Thank you! Yes the spot is right next to a major highway, and there is a supermarket directly beside the bog too

 

[Tanukimo]

Great pictures! The flava look spectacular, and I can't believe how many plants there are.

 

[sflynn]

Yeah, and I didn't even post the other 225 pictures I took at that bog!

 

[RyanG]

Wow! I live right here in the panhandle and have only barely been able to barely scrape the surface of all the stuff by me! I have seen and was able to briefly look around that bog area in walton county by 98. Saw only flava var flava, drosera intermedia, and drosera capillaris.

 

[sflynn]

What area do you live by? Yeah there is a crazy amount of CP's in the panhandle area, have you ever been to Blackwater State Forest? That's probably one of the best places to go fro CP's in this area.

 

[RyanG]

I'm in Fort Walton. Never been to Blackwater. I briefly worked at that supermarket you were talking about on 98, and one day on lunch I sneaked off to the road bythe store that kinda leads into the woods and was utterly shocked that I was walking into a bog! Never noticed the flava by the roadside until after that. That was a year ago and to me it looked like a chunk of that land was about to be developed. The only two other places I've seen CP are at Turkey Creek and various times on the reservation. The reservation is where I saw the sarrs growing on floating masses of sphagnum with d. intermedia. Sadly, when I wentto Turkey Creek a few weeks ago I only saw two rubras and that was it. I remember there being lots of rubra, flava, and all our native drosera livingalong that creek a long time ago when I was a kid. Pretty sure poachers got to them.

 

[sflynn]

For comparison here is what the bog looked like in 2011:

and now:

 

[bluemax]

Wonderful photos! It makes me happy to realize that there are still places in the world that look like this. I appreciate you taking the time to post it all. On the last set - do you mean to say that the habitat has actually improved?

 

[sflynn]

Yes that's what I was trying to show bluemax, sorry if it caused any confusion. Also I just learned that this bog is protected and is being managed by mechanical clearings, which explains the difference in the before and after pictures.

 

[bluemax]