Pics: wild sphagnum!

[TheFury]

So I had never seen live sphagnum before. This past weekend I went up to Vermont with some friends. We spent the day hiking up Magic Mountain:

The weather was GORGEOUS

Anyway, on the way back down, I spied a little stream and broke off to investigate. Found me a nice outcropping of sphagnum!

I was was on my knees, looking and looking for SOMETHING carnivorous growing in or around the sphagnum outcropping, but alas, I suppose it's too far north (and too high elevation) to make a good habitat for many CPs. My friends wondered what on earth I could be so interested in...

*disclaimer/statement of the obvious: I did not harvest, disturb, or introduce any foreign objects to this little oasis while photographing it.

 

[kulamauiman]

could be D. rotundifolia there. just might have already gone dormant. Would have been really hard to find the hibernacula

 

[TheFury]

Yeah, I thought if anything it would have been that or a S. purpurea. Short of pulling out a magnifying glass I did everything I could to find those little buggers.

 

[Heli]

Very Nice dude! If you want to see really awesome cps in the wild you should go down to the pine barrens, not more than a 2 hour drive from brooklyn.

 

[TheFury]

Hmm no way. I used to work in NJ in that direction; I should have made a trip of it! I hear that the marsh lands on Staten Island used to be habitat to a few genera of CPs, although I don't know if populations still exist in the "wild" areas of that borough.

 

[Heli]

If you look in my pic thread you can see some of the plants there. Also, the pics of the sarrs in the huge "mini" bog are from the area as well, I know the owner and if you ever want to check out his collection just let me know and I can see if I can arrange something.

 

[Wire Man]

S. purpurea occurs in VT. It's awesome finding live sphagnum, isn't it?

 

[dashman]

That sphagnum look great!

There may be S. purpurea around there somewhere off the beaten path. I know S. purpurea grows in the Adirondack Mtns. which isn't too far from there.