(no subject)
This is my first day off, after 13 of working straight. Prepare to be posted-to.
Here's my carnivorous bog, now:
Here's when it was first planted, in March:
Please to be noting the incredible height of that tallest pitcher plant. That particular plant was completely dormant at the time of planting, it was like planting a lump of dirt and a small bit of dried crumpled leaf. All of that growth is new! And the little flytrap in the foreground, stretching up new traps, what once was just a tiny hint of green amid the sphagnum.
(Yes, along the way it also became a bit of a dinosaur hangout. It happens.)
Do you know how a sundew grows?
I'll show you: like a zipper.
It starts with a folded green spear, like a bent chive, but as it straightens, the red dew thingies open up from a centerline seam, popping out from the middle, which you see right in the center, here.
Do you know how a sundew eats?
I'll show you:
Gross, huh? I said sundews are the prettiest of the carnivorous plants, and Dan said "no, they're the most disgusting, because they chew with their mouths open."
It's true: flytrap and pitcher plants keep all the killing nonsense contained inside. Sundews digest right on the surface.
Eta: here's a more close-up view of the bog, in which you can see:
1) how big the pitchers are that some of the other varieties of pitchers are putting out.
2) the bloom on the sundew, how it's arching up
3) how even the "sarracenia purpuria" (with the deep red pitchers) grows in green at first, with red veins, and then darken in the sunlight
4) that awesome little Venus flytrap and all its ambitions.
(The non-carnivorous companion plants there are a type of orchid--the green leaves--and a cranberry plant, easily identifiable.)