Quote[/b] ]Okay gang,
Official this time: The site is there and looking good. We had some miscommunication about which site we were discussing, but I just got back from the area (I had some wonderful company on the trip, as Jay Lechtman was down from Virginia).
No evidence of poaching there, though the first flava spot on highway 379 (the cypress stand population) definitely had fewer red tubes than say, 1995 or so. The Pinguicula spot (one of my favorites), which had only stunted P. planifolia and NO ionantha in late May now has about two feet of water and there are thousands of ionantha and planifolia, often growing side-by-side. They have not reached the size of the specimens I saw last September (one ionantha measured over seven inches across), but they are taking off. If anything, there are more plants than last year. It's amazing to see how resilient these plants are if we will just give them the chance to survive. We also found P. primuliflora in the Forest for the first time. How cool is that?
Wrapping up, we saw some of the most amazing flava x purpurea hybrids and backcrosses. Jay was quite thrilled to see them and get some (hopefully) great digital photos to share. I shot another hour of video and I think I have some amazing footage for the next DVD. However, the original plan might change. I have so much great footage with the new camera shot here in the Florida panhandle, that I might limit the second DVD to just those areas. But I'm sure Jay will tell you, the footage will absolutely blow you away!!
Best regards to all (and glad we cleared up the red tube issue),
Jim