In addition to climbing Mt St Helens, visiting Portland, Redwood
State Park near Crescent City CA, and
San Francisco, I took the advice of several list members and
visited many west coast CP attractions.
First I stopped by Darlingtonia Wayside. I was there last year
during the peak of the flowering season and
it was quite cool. This time, the weather was very hot and last
years pitchers were dying as new green
pitchers were shooting up everywhere. It was great to see a
different phase in their natural life cycle.
Two miles away at the coast, the sand was so hot on the dunes it
burned my feet.
Next I visited Crescent City primarily to see the large tracts of
old growth Redwoods, but I also went off up
in the mountains near Gasquett looking for cp. I stopped at a
ranger station near Nine Rivers State Park (I
think) and asked about bogs. The look on the rangers face said -
"What's a bog?" so I just left and headed to
and past Gasquett. Finally I caught a glimpse of a Darlingtonia
growing in the drainage ditch on the side of
the highway. I found two separate stands about 5 miles apart. One
stood in a small bog alongside the
road where a stream tumbled down from the mountains. I found
several large dense collections of plants as
well as individual plants closer to the road. One seedling had
bizarre pointed hoods extending over a very
simple tube. I hardly recognized what it was.
The second site I located was near the town limits and was
a bog on a hill. Here several varieties
of carnivorous plants grew side by side like they occur in the
east. Among several small streams cascading
down the hill grew Darlingtonias mostly as large single plants,
many patches of drosera and a few patches
of pinguicula partially submerged by running water. The area was
all on a hill with a few level spots.
It was a beautiful site. Unfortunately I could note tell if it was
part of the state park or private property. Across
the road stood a dreaded real estate sign. Wish I could buy it
myself... Anyways, I drew a little map to the
site and can provide it to anyone who is interested as soon as I
unpack it. I got kind of lost before I finally
figured out exactly what types of plants and terrain to look for.
Then I traveled on to sonoma county to the town of Healdsburg. It
took some time to figure out which winery
California Carnivores was associated with (Mark West) but I found
one listed as including a nursery and
it had the right address, so I went there. This place is well
worth visiting. I saw many plants in cultivation I'd
never seen be fore such as Nepenthes villosa!! He also had several
rajah including one large plant with
a new pitcher forming and the tendril ending before the leaf (I
forget the terminology for this). Peter D'Amato
told me that he'd recently had an intern who cut off all its
pitchers thinking they were dead. There was a
N. rafflesiana with a pitcher nearly the size of a football, and
several bicalcarata pitchers nearby almost as large.
N. saguinea was also a particularly spectacular plant. He had
several huge Drosera regia and two large
specimens of Heliamphora nutans he said were about 15 years old.
He also had a beautiful collection of
pinguicula and Sarracenia. I purchased a Drosera regia, a
Heliamphora nutans, a Nepenthes reinwardtiana
and a Drosera prolifera (?), and shipped them back. Peter said he
was planning to get online soon and I told
him you all said a lot of nice things about him. Over at the
winery on the same grounds, they seemed a bit
jealous of all the attention the cp receive. Apparently CNN was
just out there last week and people often show
up in the tasting room asking where are the carnivorous plants!!!
The person in the tasting room said she used
a plant from the nursery to catch all the fruit flies and was so
proud of her organic, all-natural pest control
(their wine is organically grown as well). I bought a couple of
bottles of their wine as well spending over
$150 at this stop!
Finally, I visited the Golden Gate Bridge park conservatory. There
were many beautiful aroids and water lillies.
Over a dozen nepenthes hung in pots over one pond including one
plant with pitchers even larger than any
thing I'd seen at California Carnivores. The two foot plus
pitchers were mostly green with large striped
peristomes and short oval leaves. No tag identified this plant
although most were labeled. I took photos and
maybe someone can identify it from them?
I did not make it to the Berkeley greenhouses, although I did some
record shopping on Telegraph Street, which
is quite an experience in itself, and did visit the campus briefly.
Again, thanks a lot guys, for making my vacation even more fun :).
I'll put some pictures up on my home page
soon - in a week or so (http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/jpowell.html).
James.