The UCF Arboretum and What We Found Behind It
or
Yuck! My Shoes!
(Another chapter in the continuing antics of Derek and his camera)

January 3, 1998

Part 3: The Drosera Bog

Eventually, we reached the right area and started to see some of the other plants. There are tons of Drosera in the area, but try to figure out what they are. They would seem to be D.capillaris, but a very varied species it must be, or there is some other hybridization (if so, probably with D.intermedia, although I haven't positively ID'd any of those in this area) going on. In this area there are mostly-red, mostly-green, tight-rosetted, stalky, and "typical form" plants in all combinations of characteristics.

The area in which I first discovered the Drosera growing is a dish-like depression in the middle of the pine forest, about a hundred yards across, a few hundred yards down the trail from the retention pond and off to one side of the main path so that it's barely noticeable until you're standing in it. I believe that "bog" would be the correct term for this type of formation, but I may be mistaken. I don't know what type of plants are populating this area, if they're dwarf species or some very low-growing bog-dweller, but they only get to about 4' tall and during the summer, were covered in little yellow flowers.

This trip, however, there were no Drosera to be seen here, since the whole depression was about 6" deep in water from the heavy rains the area had been receiving instead of just kind of squishy-damp like usual. Oh well. Not everyone minded that the area was flooded, though. A little box turtle wasn't too happy with me trying to take his picture and closed himself all up. You don't see too many of these guys around the area anymore, they were all scared off along with the Gopher Tortoises when the University built the road through their home.

The trail past the bog area was spotted with more little Drosera here and there, again showing a wide variation in color and form. Some were almost entirely red, and others growing right nearby were mostly green with only reddish tentacles. As we walked along the trail, I ran across an old friend: the spot at which I first discovered that Drosera lived here, and that little plant (or a relation) was still there! A root grows across the path here, which requires people to step over it, which is what allows this little Drosera to survive, even growing in the middle of the path. This time, he even had a friend with him! Unfortunately, I used to see little Pinguicula nearby, too, but those have been missing the last few times I've been to visit, and still were. (From seeing plants recently and comparing to what's in my memory, there used to be P.pumila near this spot, but I haven't seen them since the first time I followed this trail and found them.)

There is very varied terrain along the path. One little area is covered with this odd moss or lichen of some type. It looks and feels a lot like one of those plastic kitchen scrubbers you can buy instead of steel wool. I wouldn't recommend using it for that purpose, though. There is lots of Sphagnum along the trail as it starts to get wetter. Eventually, the amount of wetness is enough for a little stream to form that runs down the middle of the path for a short time and eventually heels over and runs alongside the path until it lets out where this path dead-ends into another path that leads to the really wet area.

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