The last tour of CP I made was through North Carolina. Our destination
was the Wilmington area to seek _Dionaea_. Don Schnell had given me
three good locations.
The first area was near the Waccamaw river, land adjoining a hunt
club. Obviously fire prevention had taken its toll, for the plants
were being choked out by grasses. Still I was able to find some nice
_D.capillaris, S.purpurea, S. minor_, and veined forms of _S.flava_.
The _Dionaea_ was in flower and living on one of the few areas the
grass had not monopolized.
A far better site was next to a small seasonally wet pond. Here we found
_D.capillaris, D.intermedia, U.purpurea_, and one of the few N. Carolina
occurrences of _D.filiformis filiformis_. Some large clumps of
_S.flava_ were present and were extremely colourful in their veining.
I classified them as akin to the _ornata_ variety. The _Dionaea_ were
on higher ground and are probably never under water even when the pond
is full. It was fun to look at the richly coloured traps---some were
deep red, others splotchy, others all green. They were simple to find
because they were in flower. I think if you visited the pond when
they weren't in flower they might be extremely difficult to find,
if you didn't know *exactly* where to look.
My last CP excursion was to the famous Green Swamp. This incredibly large
and beautiful area has much written about it. It has long been a wetland
garden of Eden. But it has been destroyed. In its place is a logging
operation. There are only a very few remnant stands of plants there.
I visited one, next to a Nature Conservancy holding. The area was very
nice, filled with all the colourful indicators and orchids I had
learned to appreciate, plenty of CP poking through the grasses (_Dionaea,
U.subulata, U.striata, D.intermedia, D.capillaris, P.caerulea, S.purpurea
venosa, S.rubra rubra_, and various all-green and veined _S.flava_).
It was a lovely savannah and made for a fine end to my CP travels,
but it was also very bittersweet to see---knowing how large
the site once had been. I said goodbye to my newly made CP friends,
promised to come back, and slowly returned to my car.