Post by RΛYCE on Apr 14, 2020 6:18:26 GMT -5
Yes my friends, there are feral Sarracenia in Washington State.
This has to be one of the greatest thrills I’ve ever had regarding plants. If you got a thick enough skull like me to creep behind a backwoods shooting range, a dump, and sneak around an off-limits segment of public property waaay deep in the Washington sticks, you might run into a bog. Well this particular apparition ain’t no regular Washingtonian boot-sucker. If you look closely, all along the edge of the sphag hummock there are scattered Sarracenia flava, bless! Big ones little ones fat ones skinny ones ugly ones pretty ones, you name it they got it. I even spotted a few purps hiding out in some of the more remote parts.
Now let me say that this is not an accessible piece of land. And I don’t just say that to deter poachers. I required a raft to get to the plants and I almost busted it on the sharp sticks and stumps around the edge. The rednecks aren’t friendly out here either. This is the STICKS. Lots of drugs and a ton of ammo. You really don’t wanna meth around up there. They might mistake you for the police or something.
Legend has it this bog was populated by an apostle of Jerry Addington’s back in the day before people were concerned with introducing invasive taxa. The plants don’t seem to be especially harmful to their accompanying native vegetation, but they are certainly reproductive non-residents. Though they have set seed, progeny remain within 10 feet of the parent plants. They do not regularly populate other parts of the lake, but there are indeed some established groups of S. Flava on shores distant from the largest group, likely part of the original planting. The distribution of plants follows a pattern of a few large adults along the perimeter, with smaller seedlings growing among them exclusively on the hummock’s edge. I expect this reflects the original planting pattern. They receive quite a bit of sun considering their disadvantaged orientation but more characteristics about their location I will not reveal.
I know there was Leuco present at the site in ages past but it has since gone extinct. It is far too cold up there for them, and in mid June the Flava were barely popping their first traps. Oreophila would do well here, probably too well.
Flava varieties present included a proliferation of cuprea clones, quite a few maxima, some rugelii, a few v. Flava, and what I suspect are backcrossed catesbaei. There were no obvious crosses with the purpurea ssp. purpurea that is also present at the site, probably because their populations are quite removed from one another. Flava v. ornata was also present but it was arguably an intervarietal hybrid by more discriminating standards.
There are also some very localized vft that have established themselves in-between two of the larger populations of S. Flava on some sphagnum where it cohabitates with Drosera rotundifolia. Utricularia are present in the water.
Quite healthy plants, colorful, very fun.
Don’t even THINK of asking me where in WA this is unless I know you personally. The site is very remote, very difficult to get to, and quite dangerous to navigate. Having gone there, I don’t want to go back again. Any footing you think you have is treacherous and I spent little more than 15 minutes browsing plants outside the raft.
These pics were taken in June 2018.
This has to be one of the greatest thrills I’ve ever had regarding plants. If you got a thick enough skull like me to creep behind a backwoods shooting range, a dump, and sneak around an off-limits segment of public property waaay deep in the Washington sticks, you might run into a bog. Well this particular apparition ain’t no regular Washingtonian boot-sucker. If you look closely, all along the edge of the sphag hummock there are scattered Sarracenia flava, bless! Big ones little ones fat ones skinny ones ugly ones pretty ones, you name it they got it. I even spotted a few purps hiding out in some of the more remote parts.
Now let me say that this is not an accessible piece of land. And I don’t just say that to deter poachers. I required a raft to get to the plants and I almost busted it on the sharp sticks and stumps around the edge. The rednecks aren’t friendly out here either. This is the STICKS. Lots of drugs and a ton of ammo. You really don’t wanna meth around up there. They might mistake you for the police or something.
Legend has it this bog was populated by an apostle of Jerry Addington’s back in the day before people were concerned with introducing invasive taxa. The plants don’t seem to be especially harmful to their accompanying native vegetation, but they are certainly reproductive non-residents. Though they have set seed, progeny remain within 10 feet of the parent plants. They do not regularly populate other parts of the lake, but there are indeed some established groups of S. Flava on shores distant from the largest group, likely part of the original planting. The distribution of plants follows a pattern of a few large adults along the perimeter, with smaller seedlings growing among them exclusively on the hummock’s edge. I expect this reflects the original planting pattern. They receive quite a bit of sun considering their disadvantaged orientation but more characteristics about their location I will not reveal.
I know there was Leuco present at the site in ages past but it has since gone extinct. It is far too cold up there for them, and in mid June the Flava were barely popping their first traps. Oreophila would do well here, probably too well.
Flava varieties present included a proliferation of cuprea clones, quite a few maxima, some rugelii, a few v. Flava, and what I suspect are backcrossed catesbaei. There were no obvious crosses with the purpurea ssp. purpurea that is also present at the site, probably because their populations are quite removed from one another. Flava v. ornata was also present but it was arguably an intervarietal hybrid by more discriminating standards.
There are also some very localized vft that have established themselves in-between two of the larger populations of S. Flava on some sphagnum where it cohabitates with Drosera rotundifolia. Utricularia are present in the water.
Quite healthy plants, colorful, very fun.
Don’t even THINK of asking me where in WA this is unless I know you personally. The site is very remote, very difficult to get to, and quite dangerous to navigate. Having gone there, I don’t want to go back again. Any footing you think you have is treacherous and I spent little more than 15 minutes browsing plants outside the raft.
These pics were taken in June 2018.