Date: Tue, 5 Aug 1997 20:36:12 -0700 (PDT) From: Kevin Snively <ksnive@premier1.net> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg2970$foo@default> Subject: Cp Stomp & Pinguicula
Well, on the ride home from the pnwcpc meeting
on Saturday the 2nd. My carpooler, Ron Hoole and I decided
to go out on walk about looking for cp to photograph in the wild!
On Aug. 3rd. we started with a little lake in Skagit Co. where
10 or 20 years ago some bright individual decided to introduce
some S. purpurea. Since then others have added S. lucophylla,
Dionaea and Darlingtonia. They are not native to Washington
state USA but since they were already there we decided to visit
them. Also present were native D. rotundifolia.
The S. purpurea have attained a respectable size and
fertilized seed capsules were present at the site as well as
seedling purp's. Drosera was everywhere, you couldn't take a step
without wiping out dozens. When I go bogging, unlike most others, I either
wear sandals on my feet or go barefoot, and the slime from the Drosera
was cool and soothing. I think it might even help the Arthritis
in my feet. The Dionaea and S. lucophylla looked like it was fairly
recently put out in the bog. The luco. was smallish and alone.
The Dionaea had not yet been choked out by the Sphagnum. It
takes about 5 or so years for that. Up here the moss can and
does out compete almost every thing else in the bog. I've
seen it choke out S. purpurea.
We never found the Darlingtonia, and I had a nice, but unscheduled
swim while looking for them. I think what happened was that I
picked the wrong log to use for a bridge on the return trip to
the car. I'm built rather stoutly at 250 lbs. and when I got to about
the middle of the log the Darn Thing slowly began to sink on me. I
started yelling to Ron for help about the time things got knee deep and
my 35 mm Cannon missed going swimming with me by the length of my
forearm, Ron saved the day. The day was hot and the swim refreshing.
When we got back to the car I hid behind too few bushes to be
comfortable with, striped down to my smile, and wrang the water
out of my clothes. I put the wet things back on and we got on with
our trip. Besides being a bit tired and having wet money I was
none the worse for wear. Good thing wet money spends as well as
dry.
Note to my self:
"Next Time Take Spare Clothes."
Ron had never seen the wild Pings. of Washington so next
we went looking for them. I know a sight or two on Mount. Baker
where they grow around the rim of some alpine lakes. It basically
is a beach of muck and marl. This sight took us two years to find
and on the trip when they were finally located we had given up
looking and Andrew Marshall who was with me at the time, noticed
them while digging around in his fishing tackle box for a new hook.
But it was shortly after noon so Ron and I chose to go off looking
for another sight we had information on that we thought might be
closer. ( Actualy I sent spy's out two months earlier in the
season scouting and we went back based on their STELLAR report.)
The directions we recieved were good enough to drive right up to the
spot, hop out of the car and not really even have to look for them.
They were just there on a sheer rock cliff in front of us. Not at
all like the sight described earlier. There was a thin film of
water running down the face of it keeping things moist and the rock
looked to me like a Granite that wasn't holding up through the years
very well but I'll have to go back and look again. My brother tells
me there isn't much Granite up there. Could have been a Schist.
The area is famous locally for Serpentinite, a rock assosiated with
Pinguicula in this area, but throughout the entire trip only one
of the five seperate locations we visited obviously contained this
mineral. Yes we found five separate locations within 10 miles of the
first. Darn near every place we stopped the car and got out to look
had Ping. Just about every rock wall that had water, had a few.
I don't remember ever seeing so many bugs on Pinguicula before.
It was almost as though a bus load of school kids had been up
there with tweezers catching the smallest bugs they could find
and hand feeding the plants. We took lots of pictures and I made
some detailed +/- notes that I'll forward to you Juerg and Paul
if you would like them. There is also a small amount of seed
available for you. Elevations in the area ranged from about 1000
feet to 1600 feet. No flowers were seen. The seed capsules were
open at the lower sites and still maturing at the 1600 foot
location. If we had more time we might have found flowrs at a
higher location and I believe we would have been able to find
them if we had looked. We fealt like loco heros on the drive home.
krs
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