West Campus

Here are a couple shots from the pitcher plant bog at West Campus. To summarize the events that happened on this trip (and the one before), I will paste an email I sent to a friend of mine:

This is a white top pitcher plant. The colours of this
specimen are far more vibrant than the colours of the
specimen in the last post. I took it as a hint that the
Florida spring is finally underway.

"I am pleased to announce that I have found the elusive pitcher-plant! Twice, at that! The first time was in Blackwater River State Park (that was our starting point at least). After wading up to my waist through a flooded cypress swamp and watching one of my friends fall into the river while another flailed, screaming like a girl, from a large spider on the water, we found the precious plant for the first time. It wasn't really in the park that I found the pitcher-plant bog, though. It was a few miles down a game trail into the state forest. While there I experienced nearly every kind of habitat known in these parts, but I resolved to find a more accessible pitcher-plant bog nearer to home. That was last weekend.

A fresh fern frond pokes out from
the bog. Spring will come to this
part of West Campus.

This weekend, I had made plans to make it to West Campus, and I brought along one of the noblest companions a budding biologist could hope for, Tim Gurke. While I didn't know it at the time, he would prove to be the driving force that kept me from giving up hope. We were about to make two very important discoveries and one of them, alas, would change my life forever. When we first arrived at West Campus, I have to admit, pitcher-plants were not foremost on my mind. Cottonmouths were. We immediately moved for the ponds, the best and richest place for wildlife, when we made our first important discovery. All the places that were dear to my heart were gone. A bobcat and an excavator stood in their place. The shady paths around the rim of the ponds where I found my first cottonmouths, the little meadow where I found my first box turtles, the quaint grassy places where I found my first glass lizards; all was replaced by wood chips and churned soil. In despair, I resolved to go back but Tim, that intrepid soul, encouraged my heart and we moved on. We followed the fence up to its first edge and found that that path was flooded. All this water, being a good sign that the bog was near by, was encouraging so we veered off the path into the forest (for the bulldozers hadn't made it that far back). It wasn't more than fifteen minutes before I stumbled upon our first pitcher-plant. We took plenty of pictures and Tim took a specimen in the hopes of presenting it to you (and perhaps National Geographic). It took us some time to get back to the road. The bog became more of a dark, shaded cypress swamp the deeper we trod and the vicious thorny vines gored our legs and arms. Yet, though the blood flowed, Tim kept his pitcher-plant at his side. He displayed loyalty to the cause that would have put the best dog to shame. But, despite his best efforts, tragedy would strike. When we finally broke out onto the path (and the tics had been picked from our scalp and legs) fortune had shattered our hopes, and the coveted plant was gone, lost somewhere among the cycads. Thus, we bemoaned our failure and wondered how we could ever convince National Geographic of our story now. Then it struck me. We still had our photographs! And so these, at least, we can still give to you. Tim will forever be remembered for his bravery and heroism, however short of his goal he came in the end.

Unfortunately, I don't have many of my friends left at West Campus, and I have been making many new ones in Blackwater River State Park (there's a gorgeous watersnake that lives there), so I wont be going to West Campus much anymore."