I was only able to make it down to do some tromping around with Steve for one day - but it was a great day.
Some thoughts:
- meeting another CP person and forum member was great - Thanks for inviting me on the trip Steve - sorry I couldn't make it for more than 1 day.
- obviously seeing the CP in their natural habitat is great - very educational - how can you beat seeing the plants where they choose to grow? (vs where we happen to plant them). Some of my observations agree with prior habitat visits and some are distinctly different...
- seeing the consistent separation of D. rotundifolia & D. intermedia into their respective micro-habitats was intriguing. Even though the separation were typically only a few feet to a few inches - the D. rotundifolia always preferred the drier ground and the D. intermedia the wetter/muckier growing area. IIRC - this was even consistent on a stump sticking out of the water. The D. rotundifolia grew above the D. intermedia. Also, as close as the plants grow, we noticed no hybrids.
- While the D. intermedia loving the wetter/muckier growing areas was consistent w/ what I've observed previously - huge bogs in NE PA have D. rotundifolia growing in the sphagnum - in very wet areas...
- Similarly - I've seen S. purpurea seemingly prefer the wet areas in deep shagnum in other northern bogs. Here, the S. purpurea plants 'seemed' to prefer higher ground in the cover of low bushes. Although, we found a number of plants that were growing in the sphagnum, there were more in the bushes and those tended to be larger (go figure!)
- Previously I've found D. filiformis growing in low, flat, sandy areas. We didn't find any areas like that so I wasn't hugely surprised that we didn't find lots of them.
- Seeing actual plants of U. inflata was great. While the plants we saw were in pretty 'rugged' condition - several were flowering. The shape of the plant is truly unique and intriguing...
- We also saw some of the 'usual' string-type aquatic bladderwarts (sorry - no clue to species). These plants were very successful as they were quite common and close inspection of the traps showed many to have prey inside.
- Steve took some TDS and pH readings of water in the area. The pH readings were amazingly low (below 5?) and I was surprised that fish and plants could live in the water...
- Ticks - no real surprise that we had some crawling on us. Pleasantly not as many as I normally get in areas closer to my house in central NJ. Two of the ticks that we inspected a bit closer than others were both Lone Star ticks vs Deer ticks or Dog ticks (my apologies if these aren't the official names). Having looked at hundreds (maybe thousands) of ticks - these were only the 2nd & 3rd Lone Star ticks I've seen...
- Seeing the Pink Lady slipper orchid was great. It was in perfect condition and incredibly beautiful - big credit to Steve's sharp eyes for finding it. We were also able to look at several other much smaller blooming orchids at different locations.
- the various Fence Lizards were also very interesting to observe.
- The campground where we met (Atsion) had nice, large, flat campsites with a decent separation and significant brush providing some shielding from neighboring sites (so you didn't feel that your neighbors were constantly looking over your shoulder)
- I intend to go back and spend more time there - both in this campground and exploring the local area - truly a memorable experience
& highly recommended...