Morning Day 5 – A Really LONG Day

As the title implies, this was probably the most packed day of the trip.  We woke up in Crestview Florida, for those of you who don’t know where that is, its in the western Panhandle. maybe an hour or less from the Alabama border – and we ended our day in Kingsland Georgia, just north of Jacksonville FL!  We covered a lot of ground!!!!

Ok, so our morning started of with a pile of biscuits smothered in white sausage gravy and bacon… yep, breakfast of champions! Our first stop was a pretty famous rubra gulfensis site – Turkey Hen Creek.

It’s a cold water creek with a white sandy bottom, only about knee deep. There is a large sandy parking area, with little islands of vegetation. Guess what? Those islands were covered with gulfensis… that was cool.

So we crossed the creek to where the plants were.  I’m sure if we had time to walk the creek in either direction would likely find more plants.  The gulfensis and other CP grow along the banks of the river.

Here is shot of the bank, you can clearly see the seedlings in the bottom right corner.  The seedling activity at this site was amazing!  Mixed in there were tons of D. intermedia!

We also found S. psittacina growing here… not only that, we also found a psit x gulfensis hybrid! That was cool.  The other great find was P. primuliflora.  It’s the only time on this trip I saw that species of Ping.

Again these were growing along the banks and shoals of the river!

After this we headed to a spot I couldn’t wait to see. My friend Randy found a site that housed the most enormous rubra gulfensis plants ever, I think I found one that was 36 inches long!  Maybe 34… what’s two inches when its that big! If Jay were here now… he’d throw in “that’s what she said!” LOL.  Anyway,  Randy has been calling these plants “green giants” because they are a very light green color with very little veination, even growing in full sun.

The plants are growing literally aquatically around these spring fed, cold water spring ponds.  Randy was good enough to bring a couple of Kayaks, so we could paddle out to them.  Many were visible from paths around the pond, but seeing them from the kayak was the best way to see these plants.

There’s really not too much else to say about this site other than it was very cool… and the water is very refreshing… at least that’s what Randy and Marie said, I thought it was cold… lucky if it was above 70F at least that’s how it felt.

Here is a shot of a few clumps of gulfensis, using the trees for scale and seeing how far away my Kayak is… it’s easy to see how large these plants are.

In this photo you can see that these plants are growing on the surface of the pond.  I used my paddle to check the depth of water under these plants… the paddle didn’t find the bottom, but I could see it – that’s how clear the water was.  If you look in the water you can also see D. intermedia growing on the surface.

He’s a floater!

I can’t remember who spotted this guy, but he was hard to see in the tree.

From here we headed east with our next stop, the sinkhole lakes north of Panama City FL to see the red florida filiformis.  However, before that, we made a stop to see some other wild plants… but that’s in the afternoon.

CJM

A fall time favorite

I know I posted a pic of this last year… But I really love this plant. It’s a natural cross of psittacina and leucophylla. This time of year it really puts up a show… At least till we get our first killing frost.

So far so good, no real freeze. We did have a roof frost a few nights ago, but nothing that made it to the ground. However, it won’t be long now. We usually have a killing frost before November. Until then, the late season show continues.

CJM

Afternoon Day 4 – Blackwater State Forest

This is one of those places I’ve always wanted to see.  An anomaly as far as color forms of Sarracenia flava go in Florida. I’m speaking about the all red flavas of Blackwater State Forest.

S. flava var atropurpurea, according to the literature,  is mainly a Carolina plant.  However, Blackwater State forest is home to one of most amazing populations of this color form in existence. I don’t know where I heard this, but someone once told me that they believe these plants were moved here from the Carolinas many years ago. Are they native to this site or introduced… I don’t know for sure.  It seems a bit odd that this one bog is loaded with this plant… however, regardless if their origin, it was a sight to behold.

As you can tell by the photos, this form is abundant. There were also plants that were clearly of hybrid origin, but they were few… the bog remained mainly red and yellow! The color of these plants was so striking… deep crimson red from top to bottom.  Even in mid August the color was still vibrant and strong.

One other comment.  Many plants in cultivation have been labeled atropurpurea, but really arent.  There are may red tube (flava var rubricorpora) plants that turn completely red in late summer and can be confused as atropurpurea.  Unlike the redtube plants, when these leaves open, the leaf is completely red… period.

As mentioned in the previous post (I think), Jay and I spent this day with Randy and Marie.  While Randy is a long time Sarraceniaphile, Marie is pretty new to this.  She was very impressed with all of this and decided that she wanted to shoot a video about this bog, and wanted me to be the host! So here is a Youtube link to her video.  Sadly, the when she zoomed in for close ups that camera didn’t focus, but its cool none the less.

And so ended day 4.  Back to Crestview we went for a shower before going to Randy’s for dinner, yep, you guessed it, BBQ! Beef Ribs and Pulled pork.  Not to mention a few icy drinks made using is solar powered blender!

CJM

Morning Day 4 – Eglin Airforce Base

After an EARLY morning rise at Bob’s in AL, we headed east to Okaloosa County Florida to pick up our passes to gain access to Eglin Airforce Base.  Funny, our names were still in the computer system from the last time we were there in the late 90’s and our visit was within days our current visit!  That was cool.  Anyway, got our passes and headed to the west side of the Base.  There we met up with Randy Zerr and his lady Marie Thompson.

The site we were visiting was quite close to the famous Yellow River site. Sadly, not much is left there now. However back in the early 90’s it was a thriving site containing five species of Sarracenia in one location! S. flava, S. leucophylla, S. psittacina, S. purpurea venosa var burkii and S. rubra ssp gulfensis.  Of special note, it was this location where the Anthocyanin Free  form of rubra gulfensis was found.  I go on tangents…

So the site we were visiting was close to there.  This new site was special because it has Giant psittacina growing there.  For me the jury is out on whether these deserve special taxonomic status.  Any time I’ve encountered Giant psits, they are growing aquatically. I’ve seen other Sarracenia like S. flava growing aquatically and they were huge! up to my ribcage and with mouths 5-7 inches across! Did these deserve taxonomic status, I don’t think so.  I go on tangents….

So these giant psitts were very cool and were truly HUGE! I forgot to add something to the photos for scale, but suffice to say, these were the largest psits I’ve ever seen, the hoods easily 2 inches across and pitchers easily 8-10 inches long!

There was also S. rubra ssp gulfensis and S. leucophylla growing as well as some utrics and drosera.

It was a good thing we had a four wheel drive vehicle for our trip. The gulf coast had a lot of rain during the summer this year (nice seeing how its been very dry). Everywhere we went, there was lots of water! Which made for lots of fun!

So we made another quick stop at a roadside leuco site and a stop at some hole in the wall restaurant (had great pulled pork), it was off to Blackwater State Forest.

CJM

Afternoon Day 3 – Conecuh National Forest

Sorry for the delay… things got a bit busy here since school started up!

Ok, so where was I… Oh ya, our afternoon stop at Conecuh National Forest in southeastern Alabama. This for me was a must see because I’ve never seen S. flava growing in Alabama before.  From what I understand they were none to common in the state to start.  If you look at a map, Conecuh National Forest is a stones throw from the Florida border.

At this point, all the appendix 1 plant sites were visited, so now it was time to visit species that I’ve seen before, but to shake it up… going to sites I’ve never been to before.

The site we visited was on the north end of a lake, and looking at Google maps, there looks to be a lot of good habitat in the area.  Sadly, time wasn’t something we had a lot of, so we only stopped at one site.

As we drove by, I spotted a few leucos from the road, nothing to write home about, but it was the only spot we could see. So after parking the vehicle, we walked toward the plants.  Little did we know, it was just the start. As we approached the plants you could see in the distance that forest opened up in a huge bog!  Literally filled with Sarracenia leucophylla, Sarracenia flava and Sarracenia psittacina. Can’t forget the other “usuals” for the area, Drosera capillaris and Drosera tracyii.

Spent a hour there our so, and noticed something interesting, the S. flava tended to prefer dryer habitat, not that it was dry by any means, but there was a natural slope, and the flava tended to be higher up the slope, come to think of it, the red flava bog, that we visited the next day exhibited the same preferences. There were spots where the flava and leuco mixed, but generally the flava grew near the top end of the slop and the leucos and psittacina at the lower end.  More on that later.

Here are few pics of the plants we found there.

The last and final stop for the day was

Never been here before either and let me say… if you’re ever in Baldwin County, you need to visit this place.  It it very well maintained and well signed. A very impressive preserve. The sad part, is by the time we got there, it was quite late and we didn’t have a ton of time to explore (need another trip!) We pretty much got only look only quickly through the main “show savnnah”. there is so much more.

We did see purpurea, leucophylla, psittacina, wherryii, and a number of different hybrids. The variability in the leucos there was very impressive, ones almost pure white, to red as pictured below.  The red clearly being a result of introgression, but beautiful none the less.

A great way to end day three.  We were now off to spend the night at one of the most amazing Sarracenia sanctuaries in Alabama… Bob Hanrahan’s property.

CJM

The Morning of Day 3

So here’s day three of visiting Appendix 1 plant sites.  We’re off to see the wizard… no! wrong! We’re off to see alabamensis! Now its hard to admit this publicly, but it wasn’t as thrilling as I had hoped it would be… don’t get me wrong, it was way too cool to be photographing and seeing alabamensis in the wild, but it was kinda sad at the same time… let me explain.

Anyone who has seen a large savannah full of Sarracenia can attest to the fact that it is an awesome site!  One of those WOW moments.  Pitcher after pitcher littering the landscape! It IS really cool.  Suffice it to say, that this alabamensis site wasn’t a large impressive field, but rather a small, rather inconspicuous collection of plants situated deep in forest on the side of a hill.

Sarracenia rubra ssp alabamensis is only extant in two counties in central Alabama now – Chilton and Autauga. According to the gent at TNC, in his estimation there is only three viable sites left in the wild. By this he means capable of reproducing and continuing long term… and this was one of them.  That my friends is why this was sad. This small, unimpressive group of plants was one of three sites left in the wild that might have a chance to be around in the future. Other than the other two viable sites, the few scattered sites of alabamensis that are left are pretty much doomed.

So that’s why it was cool and sad at the same time, this was one of the three best, and it was small and unimpressive!  Now to be fair, you’ll notice in the photos that plants themselves looked like crap.  Any of you who grow this plant know that their Spring pitchers are generally pretty messed up and not all that impressive, but in the fall, they put up an amazing robust flush of pitchers!  I’m sure if I was visiting the site now, or better yet in a few weeks, it would have been more of a WOW moment.

So here are some of the photos that I took at the Case Preserve in Autauga Co. AL. I want to publicly thank the Alabama Chapter o fThe Nature Conservancy for allowing us to visit this site.  Although my ramblings may be sounding a bit negative, it is certainly NOT a reflection on TNC.  It is clear that they are doing an AMAZING job maintaining this site. There was were a lot of plants in a small area, there were many seedlings and juvenile plants visible, so clearly, this site is flourishing.  I’m sure that without the intervention of the people at TNC, this site would be overgrown and extirpated quickly!

Below is photo of the plants growing on the hillside seep.  They literally grow in band along the hill, if you go too high, the disappear, if you go to low, the disappear, there is clearly an area where the moisture regime is “just right”.   The vegetation is clearly kept at bay.

In the above shots, you can see that the fall crop of pitchers was just starting.

As we finished off our morning and headed back to our vehicle… the thing that stuck out in my mind was that this was again one of those places where I would never have expected to see Sarracenia growing.  Certainly nothing like the coastal populations I’m used to seeing anyway.  These Appendix 1 plants certainly have interesting habitats, but after visiting them, I can appreciate how fragile they really are.

I guess you can figure what we had for lunch.

So after a gallon of sweet tea and some pulled pork, beans and slaw… we headed south to the Conecuh National Forest in southeastern AL.

CJM

 

Afternoon Day 2 – North Eastern Alabama

We had been given permission from TNC in Alabama to visit two preserves in NE Alabama.  We started our tour with Chitwood Barrens Preserve.  After an exhaustive search for oreophila, we gave up.  The most frustrating thing was that were even given a map from TNC that had an arrow showing where the plants were.  I’m sure we were walking around them to be honest, it was just so overgrown, and in need of help, that unless someone pointed them out, finding them was near impossible. This site needs some love!

So we moved further south to a possible site.  A friend sent me a reference to oreophila being spotted on a hiking trail near the Little River gorge.  So I contacted the person who posted this on his website and he sent me GPS coordinates to the area.  We found the path, we found the creek he was referring to, but did not find the plant.  We found powercut nearby, and I thought… “hey, don’t I always seem to find Sarracenia in powercuts?” Seeing how the same steam that we were following in the woods where the plant was spotted, it made sense to think that there might be plants in the cut!  Yep… I was right! Not a huge population, maybe 30 or so clumps. I don’t think its an unknown location, but for me it was like discovering the site.  Pretty typical looking plants, kinda pooched out for the summer.

Then we moved on to our last site… again, a very well known site… the Coosa River Preserve.

The following is a photograph of the site in 2003.  I got this off flickr so if someone recognizes who owns it, or you are the owner, please understand I do not mean to steel your image, I just want to use it to show a then and now comparison.  I will give you the best credit that I can here from the info I found on Flickr.  The photo below is owned by Brian and lives in St. Peter Minnesota and he goes by Aeranthes on Flickr. So Brian if you see this and want me to remove it, I certainly will.  Please contact me here on my blog.

Clearly a large healthy population of plants.  Sadly, when I visited this site, it was a very overgrown mess.  It was clear that there was some attempt to mechanically remove some brush recently, but it is VERY overgrown.  We did find plants, but nothing like what is pictured above. Below is a random shot of the habitat now.

Here is photo of the nicest looking plants that I found.

And so ended day 2.  It was very cool to see these sites, but clearly more work needs to be done.  Sadly, the TNC is very overworked in AL and can only do so much.  It would be nice to see this site restored to the lustre it had back in 2003.

Our next day was going to equally cool… the last of three CITIES Appendix 1 plants… S. rubra alabamensis.

CJM

Morning Day 2 – NC/GA oreophila

So the next morning we woke up early… had to meet our guide at the preserve at 8:30.  We stayed at a Holiday Inn Express… very nice place… I can talk all I want how nice the room was, or how comfy the bed was, but really what mattered was that I had the best breakfast there, Biscuits and sausage gravy, with scrambled eggs and bacon!  mmmm love biscuits and gravy.

Anyway, enough of that.  So we drove to the preserve and met our guide from the nature conservancy.  This place is truly unique as its the only extant site for Sarracenia oreophila in the state of Georgia.

I was excited to see this site as I had visited once before in 1994. I had got permission from the person maintaining the property to take a walk to the bog.  Lots has changed.  Sadly, not in a good way.

Here is a recreation of a photo I took in 1994. There were lots of oreophila in this area.  Now nothing except for about 20 clumps that the TNC has planted. The actual bog is to the left of this shot.  Lots of nice plants in there, but like I said, it pales to how many there used to be here.

As you can tell by the photo, the plants here were pretty dried up for the summer.  There were some new leaves coming up, but generally most of the leaves were dried up which made for ugly photos.

The leaves that we did find were striking!  Many exhibiting dark thick veins and red lips. This would be an amazing place to see in the spring!

When we were done, we headed north over the border into NC to visit the only extant North Carolina site of Sarracenia oreophila.  I had heard from a number of sources that that site is carefully watched by people in the area, and its not good to visit unless you have a guide.  Thankfully, our TNC guy took us there, cause within a short time of being there, someone was calling out to us and asking who we were and why we were there.  I have to admit, it was great to see that the “locals” care for and watch this site.

This is one of those spots that if you don’t know it was there, you would never see it.  Tucked in a clearing, this was a very large, clearly well maintained, oreophila site. There were large clumps, again way beyond their prime, but amazing to see none the less.

The plants here are pretty much the same as the plants we saw in GA.  They produce the same thin, non recurved phylodia.  I wish I took a picture.  Typical oreophila are curved broad and flat, these are straight and thin.  A characteristic that these populations share.  Being close to each other, I’m sure historically these populations are genticaly very similar. Our guide mentioned that there was another site between the two, but it was no longer extant.

From here it was off to north eastern AL to visit some more oreophila sites.  We got permission to access to two preserves, and we got a tip on another site off a birdwatching (or hiking) webpage.

It was a great morning, and many thanks to Malcolm our guide from the Nature Conservancy for taking time to drive out and take us around!!! There is nothing better to cap off a perfect morning with than a perfect lunch.  So we stopped in Chattanooga TN

Even though this is a “chain” BBQ place… the food was awesome.

CJM

Afternoon Day 1 – Jonesii Country!

After our purpurea expeditions and some BBQ to refuel, we found ourselves in Sarracenia rubra jonesii country in South Carolina.  If I didn’t know that Sarracenia grew here, I’d never think to look.  The habitat is so unique and different from where you’d expect to see Sarracenia growing.  Here, the plants grow on granite outcrops called “Balds”. The photo below shows a bald off in the distance.

In some of the cases, these Balds have streams flowing over them… it’s these streams that create the habitats where not only jonesii are found, but other carnivores like drosera rotundifolia and utricularia species.

After following the stream through the woods, the forest opened to a bald.  Although not visible in the photograph, there are jonesii growing in the scrub to left of the stream.

Where the stream flows over the rock, it spreads out into a thin layer of water.  I was warned by many not to walk in the water as the layer of algae on the rock is extremely slippery.  Of course I had to find out for myself.  Standing on a good section of dry rock, I ran a foot over the surface… suffice it say that a greased pole would be easier to walk on!

Working our way down the bald we even encountered opuntia sp.  Where there is no water flowing these balds are like desserts… full sun and very dry!

At last, we spotted what we came to see!

The plants we saw grew in little boggy pockets on the rocks where water diverted from the main stream. These low pockets are filled with organic matter.  Its on these hummocks where you find the carnivores.

Seeing these habitats in person, I realized how fragile they really are.  I slight diversion in the steam, or water flow over the rocks and these little boggy pockets will dry out! No water… no more Sarracenia!

We found this little seedling that was clinging to a tiny patch not more than a square inch on one of the rocks. One good rain and that little puppy was sliding down the hill. Feeling the need to save it, I relocated it to another newly formed hummock that was was a lot more stable and didn’t have any jonesii on it.  Hopefully in a few years, there will be a new patch of plants there for people to enjoy.

Next we moved a little further east to another site.  This site is around a pond.  Many years ago, a family who lived on the property created this pond by damming a creek that flowed down the mountain.  This creek happened to be a habitat for jonesii.  Higher up the hill the bald is visible where the plants are.  The seed obviously flowed down the “slide” of the bald and made its way to the pond below where they colonized all the appropriate habitat in the lake margin.

These plants formed very dense colonies and numbered in the thousands!

From here, we returned to Mark’s home where he showed us the bog garden on his property!  It was a great end to our first day in the field.

We then headed west to north eastern GA for the night and an early morning meeting with some oreo’s… and I’m not talking cookies!

CJM

 

 

The morning of Day 1 – Mountain S. purpurea

Our first day out in the field was truly amazing. In my 30 plus years of growing Sarracenia, I’ve never been to see the mountain form of S. purpurea. Today was the day where that was going to change.  We met up with our guide Mark and off we went.

Our first stop was a lake margin in North Carolina where S. purpurea ssp venosa var montana grew.  The place was literally littered with plants.  The population looked strong, with many mature plants, young plants and a lot of seedling recruitment. The only hitch, the land is for sale to be developed into a housing subdivision.  The other side of the lake now has houses and finely manicured walled lake margins!  Here are some of the plants we found here.

From here we headed west to another purpurea bog. However, before we got there we had to stop for lunch… Nothing like a plate of BBQ to beat away those hunger pangs!  Good food at a good price… no complaints.

When we arrived at the second bog, you couldn’t help but notice that this habitat was very different from the lake margin.  This one was much more grown over, infact at the margins of the bog, the plants growing on a forest floor in the shade.  They had flowered, so they were obviously healthy. However, they lacked any color… at first I thought I found antho free mountain purpurea, but after a quick reality check and check of the growing point just to be sure, they were clearly regular purpurea growing the the shade.

The plants in the bog proper, were still somewhat shaded by the overgrowth of shrub species, but there was enough light to get the plants to show some color.

From here it was off to see our first Appendix 1 species… S. rubra ssp jonesii!

CJM