RHH's photos with the keyword: flava

Here's one for Halloween - some carnivorous plants growing on a floating bog here in western Washington. They're not native to Washington, but they're moving in and they're hungry! More seriously, they are not native but many years ago were transplanted as part of a rescue from the Carolinas, where they do grow, to this bog where they've become very well established, They are the Yellow Pitcher Plants, Sarracenia flava. There are four other species of non-native plants, including two other pitchers growing in this bog as well as one native species. For those not acquainted with these unusual plants, they are carnivorous, the water-filled pitchers trapping insects which are digested and which provide nutrients to the plants. The inset photo was taken by my son with a point and shoot camera down into the tube of a Purple Pitcher Plant and shows a dead dragonfly floating in the water at the top of the tube. The oddly shaped growth in front of the pitchers (the leaves) is one of the flowers of this species. It flowers late in the year about the time we usually make our annual visit to the bog.

They look so bright and cheerful, don't they? Well, don't be fooled by them because they eat meat and they may even grab you as you walk by. This is my post, or one of them, for Halloween, and very appropriate, I thought, because these are carnivorous plants, the Yellow Pitcher Plant, Sarracenia flava, with several pitchers or specialized leaves and a flower. I've posted pictures from this place before, but we make a trip there every year to see these amazing plants. They grow in a muskeg or floating bog on a lake south of us and there are five species of carnivorous plants growing there, one native and three non-native, and all very well established and thriving, especially these Yellow Pitchers and also the Purple Pitcher Plant. No one seems to know who planted them in the bog or when, and there are, of course, issues with introducing non-native plants into an area, though this bog is remote enough and isolated enough that there is very little chance that they are going to spread elsewhere. Nor do they seem to be competing with the native plants or crowding them out. We went to the bog with a friend and found, as usual that access to the floating mat of vegetation on which these plants grow to be rather difficult - a a kind of balancing act over old sunken logs and floating boards with fairly deep water all around. In the end we all fell in and were wet to our waists and though we wore boots had to pour the water out of our boots when we arrived back at the car.

On Saturday, September 1, my wife and I made our annual pilgrimage to Summer Lake in Skagit County and to a muskeg or floating bog on the lake to see the Pitcher Plants and other carnivorous plants that have been naturalized there. I wrote in a previous post that no one seems to know when and how these plants were first put there, but several species have become well established, though it appeared to us that someone had removed them from the north end of the lake. When we first heard of this place, we were told that there were five non-native species of carnivorous plants to be found. On our first visit we found only four, the Purple, White and Yellow Pitcher Plants and the Venus Fly Traps, We did not find the Cobra Lily and have not found it on any visit since. On this most recent visit, the White Pitcher Plant seems to have disappeared as well, but that is not a surprise since we only ever found a few of them, and fewer every year. That they are not native is probably the reason. The other two Pitcher Plants we found again all around the east and south sides of the lake, the yellow especially on the south side and the Purple mostly on the east side. The Venus Fly Traps we found only on the southwest side, but they appeared to be better established than ever before. In addition to these three non-natives the Round-leaved Sundew, with its tiny pads of glistening hairs, can also be found growing in abundance, this also especially on the east side. Both the Purple and Yellow Pitcher Plants were in flower, the first time we had seen the flowers of the Purple, which blooms a bit earlier than the yellow, but we were earlier this year than we usually are and were delighted to see these odd blooms. The Venus Fly Traps were finished flowering, but only just, and we will have to go to see them in flower some other time. The photo shows the Yellow Pitcher Plants (obviously) and the size of the clumps which have established themselves around the lake. More pictures and information here: ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2012/09/carnivorous...

This is another photo from the muskeg or quaking bog at Summer Lake in Skagit County, Washington. As noted before, someone, a long time ago, introduced a number of species of carnivorous plants into this bog and they have become established there. We usually go to see them in the autumn when the pitcher plants are in flower. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2012/09/carnivorous...

Another photo from the muskeg or floating bog in Skagit County where various species of carnivorous plants have been introduced and have flourished. These are the specialized leaves of the Yellow Pitcher Plant. Lined with hairs and with liquid at the bottom, they trap and digest insects. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2012/09/carnivorous...

This is the carnivorous Yellow Pitcher Plant and its flower photographed at Summer Lake in Skagit County. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2012/09/carnivorous...

A last picture, I think, from our excursion to Summer Lake. This is the Yellow Pitcher Plant, now established by the thousands on the floating bog and shores of the lake. If you look closely you can see a fly perched on the rim of the pitcher and one can only guess what happened to it, but that close to the opening it probably became a meal. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2012/09/carnivorous...