While we were based in Charleston, I managed to cajole, coerce, and
finagle my wife and father-in-law into a day trip back to Georgia
to canoe in the famous Okefenokee swamp. I had not seen any alligators
and wanted to! And there was something else there I wished to see...
The best way to do the swamp is by canoe. About halfway between Folkston
and St. George is the entrance to the Suwannee canal recreation area.
We arrived, dosed up on bug spray, and rented a canoe. The movie-extra
behind the counter said, ``We gotcher canoe ready on th' boat launch next
t' th' 'gator. Jus' don't mess with'm. Heh heh heh.'' When I saw this
four foot black alligator basking next to the canoe, my heart thumped until
I realized it was an obviously fake black rubber replica. It was not real,
obviously. Then it opened its eyes and waggled a few claws. I was stunned.
Another alligator smoothly paddled towards us, and watched from a few yards
as we pushed the wobbly canoe into the water. That day, canoeing on the
jet black water we saw many dozens of 'gators. Incredible animals.
I don't think "swamp" is the correct name for Okefenokee. Certainly there
were a few trees present (_Taxodium ascendens_) but most of the
area is like a huge shallow lake choked with aquatic plants. With time
the aquatics have formed enormous floating mats which act as footholds
for affixed plants. We didn't see any floating _Sphagnum_ mats like I've
seen in New Jersey bogs but I've been told they occur, especially in the
northern part of Okefenokee. In fact, the name means "trembling earth"
and if you poke the ``islands'' with an oar you can see why! I don't think
you can define how deep the water is---when I tried to find the bottom
using my oar, I realized it just depends on how hard you want to push it
into the tangled mats of vegetable matter. The Okefenokee area is
so large it is hard to describe. Imagine yourself in a canoe, surrounded by
aquatic plants (_Nymphaea odorata, Orontium aquaticum, Nuphar lutea,
Utricularia purpurea, U. gibba, U. inflata) all in flower---the growth is
so dense you are pulling yourself through the vegetation as you canoe.
Mats of floating vegetation make islands for _D.capillaris_, treelike
_D.intermedia, U. subulata, Sarracenia_, other mats are covered by rushes
and sedges. The nearest trees (bald cypress) are perhaps a km in any direction.
While the water is jet black, it is not because it is ``dirty'' or putrid.
The black colour is because of a rich tannin content, and the high acidity
prevents decomposition---in all the black-water rivers and wetlands I
explored, none had any sort of foul odor. My father-in-law is a birder,
and was rewarded by egrets, herons, hawks, owls, and eagles in addition
to the usual water-fowl with names I can't recall (like lesser-red-crested
curve-bill mud-screeble'')
Floating platforms are available on a sign-up basis in case you wish to
camp overnight. The number of people allowed in Okefenokee is strictly
limited, so these should be reserved in advance. In case you can't tell,
this place rates four stars in my book.
I learned from my Nature Conservancy buddy that the local name for
_Orontium aquaticum_ is ``Dog-dick plantain!''
We paddled out onto the canoe trail for Mizell Prairie ("prairie" is
local lingo for the open areas described above) and within an hour
of paddling we found my non-alligator goal for the trip---the local
form of _S.minor_. Sure enough, this clump of _S.minor_ and all the other
clumps of _S.minor_ we saw that day were the famous `Okefenokee giant'
plants. Standing two or three times taller than the regular _S.minor_
the `Oke giant' plants grew in full sun and were identical to my plants in
cultivation. They were the only _Sarracenia_ we saw that day, although I
know that others (including a putative giant _S.psittacina_) as well as
some _Pinguiculae_ are in the swamp area.
Since the identity of _S.minor_ `Okefenokee giant' has recently come
up in this group, let me make a few descriptive remarks. All of the places
I visited with _S.minor_ (perhaps half a dozen widely spaced locations)
showed very little variation in the species. Look at any picture of
well grown _S.minor_ and you are seeing the way the plant looks over its
entire range. Some of the plants I saw looked a little less suffused with
red, or bronze, but this is very possibly (or probably) a result of pitcher
age or subtleties in light level. Note these plants like nearly full or
full sun. The _S.minor_ `Okefenokee giant' were equally uniform as a group
(although I certainly did not explore a large portion of the swamp that
single rainy day!) and very different from the typical plants. They
averaged two or three times taller than the typical plants, but exhibited
the same colouration (fenestrations, delicate venation, diffuse red-copper
blush). While the plants are taller than the typical form, they are not
larger in diameter. This makes them look even taller. This almost sounds
like the plants are etiolated, or light starved, but such is not the
case. The plants grow in full sun, and are not flimsy and prone to toppling
as etiolated plants are. The flowers are about twice as large as normal,
but still significantly smaller the the huge ones of _S.flava_. Lastly,
the hood of `Okefenokee giant' pitchers is somewhat exaggerated, and
curves down to touch (or nearly so) the pitcher tube in front, somewhat
more so than in the typical form. All these characteristics carry over
into cultivation. Incidentally, these plants are growing so that the
growth crown is at the soil/water surface, so the extra pitcher height
is not just from the plant reaching out of the water.
To be continued...