Carnivorous plants (48)

The other day I bought a carnivorous plant—a Sarracenia 'Fiona', to be specific. We'd gone to the drought-tolerant nursery looking for a  shrub our landscaper recommended, and didn't find that, but I was enormously taken with this little pitcher plant in a pretty Mexican pot. It was on sale. How could I resist? 

And now, I am considering getting more bug-eating plants. Because they are very cool. There is a nursery specializing in such plants in Sebastopol, California Carnivores. I may have to do some web-surfing (alas, the store is not open to the public: online shopping only).

That got me thinking that I've "always" (that is, for the past ten, fifteen years—ever since I bought my first, and until the other day, only little pitcher plant) wanted to go to northern California and Oregon and see these plants in their wild habitat. A couple of spots for that:

Stony Creek Trail, outside the town of Gasquet, in the Smith River Recreation Area; here, horned butterwort (Pinguicula macroceras ssp. nortensis) and California pitcher plant (Darlingtonia californica) thrive in the nutrient-poor serpentine soils. 

Darlingtonia State Natural Site near Florence, Oregon, an 18-acre preserve with acidic boglands low in nitrogen, which are perfect for D. californica. The site is accessed via a boardwalk—which is good, because as one site I found mentioned, about an outing in Plumas County, "While walking in the meadows, we struggled through floating fens and saturated peat in our heavy rubber boots, wishing the carnivorous plants would eat more of the mosquitoes and biting flies." 

These plants are found elsewhere in the United States as well, including (for example) Big Thicket Natural Preserve in Kountze Texas (sundews, pitcher plants, bladderworts, and butterworts); Yellow River Marsh Preserve State Park, Santa Rosa County, Florida (white-top pitcher plants, Sarracenia leucophylla); Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor, Maine (esp. round-leaved sundew, Drosera rotundifolia, and northern pitcher plant, S. purpurea); and Stanley Rehder Carnivorous Plant Garden, Wilmington, North Carolina (NC has a state carnivorous plant, in fact: the Venus fly trap, Dionaea muscipula). 

For a more contained experience, next time I'm in Los Angeles I can visit the Huntington Gardens, where the large conservatory has a special wing devoted to carnivores.

I am just starting to research this, and will try to remember to update this page as I learn more. Here is a link to the Carnivorous Plant Resource, with loads of information; and some pictures:

A field of pitcher plants in Plumas County, CA

White-top pitcher plant, Sarracenia leucophylla

A bladderwort, Utricularia sp.

Cape sundew, Drosera capensis

Pinguicula moranensis (a butterwort native to
Mexico and Guatemala)

A tropical pitcher plant, Nepenthes sp.

Round-leafed sundew, D. rotundifolia