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Some pics of S. Purpurea Purpurea, Northern Mass.

Growing up in the early 90's, I became intrigued with the northern pitcher plant after seeing some in a Vermont floating bog on a camping trip. Over the next few years, I tried to find some cps near my parents house in northern Massachusetts. There is a cranberry bog there, along with plenty of marshes. After some long searching, we found some sundews (likely round leafed ones) near the edge of a marsh. After much more searching, I finally found some northern pitchers, S. Purpurea Purpeas at the edge of another wet area that had plenty of spagnum moss. Lots of trees and bushes were present, and the sphagnum grew at the bottom of the trees, almost like islands above the muck below.

I went back there this past weekend after last visiting it over 10 years ago. It was very hard to find the pitchers this time. The area is right off a hiking trail but nobody would accidentally find it. I did manage to find several plants after scrambling through all the brush at the edge of the wet area.

These plants are growing in almost complete shade. They are above the muck below growing on the spagnum. Because they are growing at an angle, half the pitchers are pointed downward, and had no liquid in them.

The pitchers are all green. I dont know if they are the "all green form" or that way due to little sunlight.

Has anybody else ever seen the northern pitcher grow in almost complete shade?

Here are some pictures. It was hard to get the shots as it was cloudy and the flas was going off, but you can see some of the pitchers.

Jeremy

Picture 1

Picture 2

Picture 3
 
Hi, and welcome to the forums! I have seen S. purpurea ssp. purpurea growing in shade, but never that much shade. The ones I've seen had some veining on them at least. I have taken many pics, and put them on my website. Here is the link: Bog trips

These pics are from fall, and early spring, and I will update them with recent pics with sundews later.

-Ben
 
That's landscape evolution in action. It's kinda heretical in this forum but those plants need to move somewhere with sun. Unless they're a newly evolved Northern forest Sarracenia species.
 
Thanks Drosera, neat pics! And yes, I think the area is definitely going thru sucession. The trees seemed higher than my last visit a decade ago, and there were less pitcher plants this time.

There is the potential of more plants further out in the swamp, near where a stream flows and more sunshine exists. Going to be VERY hard to get to though. Its almost inpenetrable!

I'll try to take some more pics of the surrounding area next time I visit the folks.

Jeremy
 
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