coastal South Carolina

From: Mellard, David (dam7@cdc.gov)
Date: Tue Jun 29 1999 - 05:27:06 PDT


Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 08:27:06 -0400
From: "Mellard, David" <dam7@cdc.gov>
To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com
Message-Id: <aabcdefg2379$foo@default>
Subject: coastal South Carolina


>Although we get a fair number of hot-weather thunderstorms, summer is our
>dry season here in NC. We don't get rain every day, or even every week. The
>ground in VFT habitat can get pretty dry.

Having grown up about 20 miles inland in coastal South Carolina, I'm amazed
when I go home now and find cp's just a few miles from my mother's house.
Many of the low-lying areas (grin, that's tough to see since everything in
coastal South Carolina looks low-lying) where cp's are found are often
covered with a few inches of water in the rainy season (late fall, winter,
spring). These areas tend to dry out somewhat in the summer when rain is
more the sporadic popcorn variety rather than sweeping fronts. Drosera
capillaris and brevifolia cope with the dry season by sending down deep
roots. This works because the water table is just a few feet below the
surface so even in the dry season when the earth's surface looks dry, it's
still damp just a few inches below the surface, at least in the areas that
cp's colonize. Now when I drive around Summerville and the surrounding
countryside, I notice the deep drainage ditches that people have dug to dry
out the land to make it habitable. CP's are still easy to find, although I
often wonder what it was like generations ago.

David
Atlanta



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