Post by meizzwang on Jan 17, 2019 17:34:27 GMT -5
2013 was the last time I randomly drove into the forest of MS hoping to find an alata bog. After 3 hours of driving to some areas that looked like they had potential, we gave up.
Years later, I thought, hey, why not try randomly driving in the forest again, at least I know where they aren't located from the last trip! If you think about the effort put into finding a new site several years ago, repeating the same method and expecting a different outcome....isnt' that the definition of insanity? Well, maybe this time around, probability will be on my side....and it was!
After driving down many different roads in the forest for several hours and then turning back with nothing to show, I finally stumbled upon a few straggler S. alatas in what appeared to be a site that was overgrown and probably disturbed by human activity. Essentially, at this point, our random driving in 2013 was about as successful as this attempt, it was really disappointing! I turned back to the main road and reasoned that it was raining and there's lots of lightening, so might as well keep driving.
20 minutes or so down a random road in the middle of the forest, I began wondering if I was wasting even more time, and the deeper you go, the sketchier the roads were getting. A storm had eaten away most of the road, so you had to drive off the road to get past an enorous ditch. At this point, I had made 2 random turns off the main side road (I placed shiny objects at each turn), these roads are more like trails and are not well mapped out (plus I don't have GPS or anything fancy, still sportin my flip phone!). 5 more minutes of this BS and I'm turning around, I hope there's no sketchy people out here! 30 seconds after successfully going past the really big ditch in the road, in the corner of my eye was a tiny little bog! Very first thing that went through my mind was literally "Like OH....My GOD!!!!"
Getting into this bog wasn't easy, it was surrounded by thick shrubs and you had to walk through some "unknowns" that could have nasty critters in it. Fortunately, nothing bad was in it, no mites, ticks, chiggers, spiders, snakes, wasps, or boo-hoos for me!
Here's what I first saw when I walked in, I thought I had only found a tiny little bog with some neat color forms: www.flickr.com/photos/63000221@N05/31838896507/in/album-72157704186008821/
After sloshing around for a little bit, I looked at the perimeter of the small bog and realized if I "soldiered" through about 40 feet of really nasty, thick brush, there sorta appears to be another bog in the distance! When I got through the smilax and thick brush, it opened up and this what I saw, another bog!!!! Whoa, it looks like this might be a pretty big site:
There's some neat, bulbous individuals up in here too!
Here's a pubescent (fancy way of saying "hairy") individual! The exterior of the trap isn't smooth like in most Sarracenia, it's sorta velvety to the touch:
Some neat color forms:
While definitely similar to other sites I've seen, in some ways, the genetics here are slightly different. Couldn't quite pinpoint it, maybe the extreme diveristy of shapes?
The substrate here was mostly fine sand mixed in with peat. The soil was mostly disrupted because of the billions upon billions of crayfish mounds found at this site. I don't think I took a pic of the soil, was too excited and from what I remember, GOSH, it was so dang hot:
There was an abundance and diverse range of color forms at this site, but I don't think I got good pictures of them all:
There's a lot more to this story, so stay tuned!
Years later, I thought, hey, why not try randomly driving in the forest again, at least I know where they aren't located from the last trip! If you think about the effort put into finding a new site several years ago, repeating the same method and expecting a different outcome....isnt' that the definition of insanity? Well, maybe this time around, probability will be on my side....and it was!
After driving down many different roads in the forest for several hours and then turning back with nothing to show, I finally stumbled upon a few straggler S. alatas in what appeared to be a site that was overgrown and probably disturbed by human activity. Essentially, at this point, our random driving in 2013 was about as successful as this attempt, it was really disappointing! I turned back to the main road and reasoned that it was raining and there's lots of lightening, so might as well keep driving.
20 minutes or so down a random road in the middle of the forest, I began wondering if I was wasting even more time, and the deeper you go, the sketchier the roads were getting. A storm had eaten away most of the road, so you had to drive off the road to get past an enorous ditch. At this point, I had made 2 random turns off the main side road (I placed shiny objects at each turn), these roads are more like trails and are not well mapped out (plus I don't have GPS or anything fancy, still sportin my flip phone!). 5 more minutes of this BS and I'm turning around, I hope there's no sketchy people out here! 30 seconds after successfully going past the really big ditch in the road, in the corner of my eye was a tiny little bog! Very first thing that went through my mind was literally "Like OH....My GOD!!!!"
Getting into this bog wasn't easy, it was surrounded by thick shrubs and you had to walk through some "unknowns" that could have nasty critters in it. Fortunately, nothing bad was in it, no mites, ticks, chiggers, spiders, snakes, wasps, or boo-hoos for me!
Here's what I first saw when I walked in, I thought I had only found a tiny little bog with some neat color forms: www.flickr.com/photos/63000221@N05/31838896507/in/album-72157704186008821/
After sloshing around for a little bit, I looked at the perimeter of the small bog and realized if I "soldiered" through about 40 feet of really nasty, thick brush, there sorta appears to be another bog in the distance! When I got through the smilax and thick brush, it opened up and this what I saw, another bog!!!! Whoa, it looks like this might be a pretty big site:
There's some neat, bulbous individuals up in here too!
Here's a pubescent (fancy way of saying "hairy") individual! The exterior of the trap isn't smooth like in most Sarracenia, it's sorta velvety to the touch:
Some neat color forms:
While definitely similar to other sites I've seen, in some ways, the genetics here are slightly different. Couldn't quite pinpoint it, maybe the extreme diveristy of shapes?
The substrate here was mostly fine sand mixed in with peat. The soil was mostly disrupted because of the billions upon billions of crayfish mounds found at this site. I don't think I took a pic of the soil, was too excited and from what I remember, GOSH, it was so dang hot:
There was an abundance and diverse range of color forms at this site, but I don't think I got good pictures of them all:
There's a lot more to this story, so stay tuned!