Ocala Utricularia and habitat.

[jrfxtreme]

Heres some pics from a recent trip to Ocala, FL.





A nice wooden bridge..


Sort of..


There was a guy in an air boat who was doing a plant survey as I scoped out the Utricularia. He said there were 3 different bladderwort species growing around the lake and 1 sundew species. As far as I know I only found 1 species of Utricularia and though I had a good hard look around the lake, I couldn't find any Drosera.


Anyone know what species of Utricularia it is?






Strange plant with a cool adaptation to keep it from submerging.




Big birds.


A coot.


The place was swarming with dragon flies.




A few days later I took the most uncomfortable canoe trip ever. I went by myself and was constantly paranoid of gators. Never ended up seeing one while in the canoe, though I saw a big one a few days earlier.


Big bird head pokin' up.






By the end of the week the Utrics were in full bloom. I tried to get some good pics but my cam developed some weird internal fog that later disappeared.


Last pic of the trip, found a big turtle eating grass.

[Not a Number]

Your strange plant is Salvinia minima an invasive species of aquatic fern

salvinia.er.usgs.gov/

salvinia.er.usgs.gov/html/comparison.html

[BarryRice]

Nice photos.

"Not a number" is right, that your handful of plant is a species of Salvinia, although I can't say I couldn't rule out one of the other species in the Salvinia auriculata group. I'm not up on the latest taxonomy of this genus.

Regarding your Utricularia images, I couldn't really ID any of the plants with certainty from your images. The problem is that there are a number of yellow-flowering species in your area. Limiting yourself to aquatics that lack floats, the list of possibilities are:


U. gibba
U. striata
U. floridana
U. foliosa


Restricting myself to the image underneath the one of Salvinia, I notice the upper corolla lip is larger than the lower, which knocks out U. foliosa as a likely contender. The fact that the water is pretty shallow suggests the plants are not likely to be U. floridana, which is a spectacularly large plant that likes really deep water.

So you're probably down to either U. gibba or U. striata. Unfortunately, the best way to distinguish these two plants are on vegetative characters (the latter species has pretty clearly dimorphic shoots). The upper corolla lobing is not particularly reliable (in your case, tending to make the ID as U. striata), but I really wouldn't feel comfortable making that ID with any degree of certainty.

My six cents....

[BarryRice]

Oh, by the way....I think that the "coot" in one of your pictures has a red bill. That would make it a moorhen instead. The big birds, of course, are sandhill cranes.

Cheers

Barry

[jwdunn5]

the big turtle is a gopher tortoise

[jrfxtreme]

Thanks guys.

It was interesting seeing the Utricularia in their habitat. I observed tiny black insects flying from flower to flower and forcing it open to get whatever nectar may be inside.

Still wish I had found some 'Dews! ;D

[mannyherrera]

I've found D.capillaris and D.intermedia in the Ocala National Forest. Have looked for S.minor for years, but have never found it.

[Deleted]

btw ive seen that kind of clumping plant that you have in your hand before and i have found there to be aquatic spiders commonly under them