Wild Sarracenia, Drosera, and other CP's in the Southeast

[sflynn]

Hello all, I have decided to post some pics of some wild CP's after being urged by some other member, hope you enjoy
Also, most of these pics are taken with my cellphone, and it hates having it's pictures turned over to the internet, so a few of them aren't the highest quality, sorry about that.

I'll start off with some pics of S. rubra subsp. wherryi in Splinter Hill Bog:



















Hope you enjoyed, more Pics and Sarracenia species to come, stay tuned

[sflynn]

Sarracenia oreophila in the wild! I found these in a well known National Preserve or Park, can't remember if it was a reserve or park, in northern Alabama. They were pretty shaded, but it was still very cool to see such a rare plant in the wild, now I've only got to find S. alabamensis and S. jonessi/S. rubra supsp. jonesii...

Anyway, the pics aren't the best since it was getting dark and raining, sorry about that:



This plant in the next two pictures had a really nice long lid compared to the others:

[sflynn]

Some S. alata I saw on my return trip from Utah, somewhere right before the Alabama border with Mississippi, they were right next to the highway and were often mowed, hence the dwarf pitchers:

















There was a few D. tracyi at the site too:


and then something really special, a S. alata x psittanica hybrid:








Some D. capillaris all over the ground, there virtually impossible to not accidentally step on:


A few plants were growing next to a fence and were much larger:

[sflynn]

Here's probably my most impressive discovery I've made so far, a yellow flowered clone of S. leucophylla in NW FL! These plants were not anthocyanin free, the just had yellow flower's. Other yellow flowered clones have been discovered in AL, but these are to my knowledge the first to be discovered in FL*(see note). This site is slowly being crowded out and is often visited by 4 wheelers and pot growers, and it didn't help when the bottom half of the bog was destroyed to make a retention pond. I have repeatedly attempted to contact the Atlanta Botanical Gardens to see about preserving these plants and maybe even site but still haven't got a answer. This site is right in the middle of a large city, and right next to a huge food center, so it just shows how many new things are still out there to be found.

*(Note: After talking with Jim Burkhalter, the curator of the herbarium of the University of West Florida, whom I am a good friend with, he showed me a herbarium specimen of a mutant S. leucophylla flower that was yellow and had 6 petals, however, this was in the 1980's when he first collected it, and the site is believed to be gone now, so I can't confirm whether this plant was antho free or yellow flowered like the ones you are about to see)

These pics arn't the best quality, but there all I have right now, sorry!

Well, here's the pics!:

Close up, note the small amounts of red on the top


Here's a pic showing the normal red flowered form, and the yellow flowered clone


There were actually several plants here, around 7-10


Finally a plant that I believe to be a intermediate form between the yellow flowered form and the typical red flowered form, probably from the two plants crossing:

[sflynn]

Here's some more shots from the same bog as the yellow flowered S. leucophylla




These pics are from just a few day's ago, surprisingly there were still quite a few late season pitchers left










Some Drosera capillaris growing underwater, this species can be quite hardy:


You thought I was joking about the weed growers, plants are already gone but they left the pots, these are only two:

[sflynn]

Here's a bunch of Sarracenia rosea/purpurea sbsp. venosa var. burkii from Tarkiln Bayou State Park, I had to hike a lot to find this population but it was worth it!

































This was the biggest pitcher I saw the whole time, it was huge!


Here's a shot of the whole plant






















Some D. capillaris here too


A funky hybrid, I believe to be S. rosea x leucophylla






















This has to be my all-time favorite Sarracenia hybrid, I believe to be S. rosea x leucophylla












Some D. tracyi


and D. capillaris


More D. tracyi, probably one of my all time favorite dews




D. tracyi field






Some D. intermedia that were growing next to a stream that ran down the middle of the trail


U. cornuta, I think, though there's a chance it could be juncea

[sflynn]

Photo bucket is being really weird tonight, can Ya'll see the U. cornuta picture?, it's the very last picture

[sflynn]

Here's a few more random pics:

What may or may not be the only pitcher any of the yellow flowered S. leucophylla's produced last year, hoping for more this year


Some more S. leucophylla from the same bog




This has to be the most beautiful sarr flower I have ever seen, It is a hybrid flower from one of only two S. flava sites in Escambia county, FL. I believe this particular hybrid is a S. flava x leucophylla, but I'm not positive, either way, it's very pretty

[tanukimo]

Nice pictures! The plants look pretty sparse, except for the Drosera tracyi.

[lulumegan]

Awesome photos always cool to see CPs in nature

[sflynn]

Mar 13, 2015 15:43:10 GMT tanukimo said:

Nice pictures! The plants look pretty sparse, except for the Drosera tracyi.

Which ones? I think almost all of them were at there natural densities from what I've seen, D. tracyi just likes to make really big clumps of plants; I should of taken more shot's of the whole habitat, so the densities would be more apparent. Thanks for the compliments!

[sflynn]

Up next is my first big Sarracenia site from this year, it's a massive bog located in Walton county Florida and it has huge amounts of Sarracenia flava and Sarracenia psittacina, as well as Drosera capillaris and some Utricularia cornuta and Pinguicula planifolia. I'm going to sort the pictures in this post a little since there is a lot of pictures, I'll do the stuff that there is relatively few pictures of first and then post the S. flava pictures last so you don't have to sort through all of the S. flava pics to find on picture of P. planifolia!. So, here we go:

I'll start with some habitat shots just to show y'all the size and scale of the bog and the number of plants:




















First up is Sarracenia psittacina these grow in large clumps throughout the bog, and there used to be many more of them but I believe they experienced some die offs after the last to winters:












You have to look closely but there are tons of forming fruits:








Next up are some Drosera capillaris "long arm", from what I've seen at this site the long arm genes are only active when the bog is flooded, when it dry's during parts of the summer the plants reduce the length of the petioles and look more regular:






Next up is some Utricularia cornuta:






Followed by Utricularia purpurea, this one was really difficult to get a good picture of:








Pinguicula planifolia, there used to be many more of these plants at this bog but this time there are only a few, I think a lot of them died last winter, but I also could of just not seen them, and this is the first time I have seen any of the plants at this bog turn red, usually they are either a bright or olive green color:








I'll post the Sarracenia flava in the next post

[sflynn]

Now come the Sarracenia flava, there is some amazing variation in S. flava at this bog so I'll try to group them by similarities, I'l start with the plants that had the most red and then finish with the plants that had almost no red coloration:














































































This one had a very ruffly lid:






Hope everyone enjoyed the photos! Sorry If I posted to many but I had over 300 originally so it was really hard to narrow them all down to just a few.

[sflynn]

I went back to Sarracenia oreophila country last week and I found (well, located I guess) another in situ population of S. oreophila! but first I also got to see the awesome S. oreophila exhibit at the Desoto State Park Nature Center! This exhibit was built as part of a Boy Scouts of America Eagle Project, that would of been an awesome Eagle Project to undertake, and along with building this exhibit another eagle project elsewhere in the park actually made a new S. oreophila bog! (There's a you-tube video of it somewhere, I'll have to find it)







They had some excellent S. oreophila var ornata in the exhibit!


There was even a late blooming flower!


And now the new In situ location of S.oreophila I found.
These plants were past there prime but I figured everyone would like to see them anyway so here ya go!

First a habitat shot, this site was very small, next to a river, and very, very dry. This area of Alabama has been experiencing a bit of a drought recently so the entire park was drier than normal, though I now see why S. oreophila goes dormant so early!
Also I believe the re-bar stuck in the ground are plant markers but I can not be sure.










There were a bunch of failed flower heads








This individual was about 12' from the main population and was growing directly next to the river




Thanks for looking, more pics to come!

EDIT: Found it! Turns out it was a different Eagle Project actually that made the new bog, but that's even better!
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[killerplants4realz]

Thanks Flynn! You made my day:) I was going to stop by splinter Hill Bog recently but ran out of time. Thanks so much for sharing!!!