Closing up:
Unfortunately, for my ego, it turned out that
we had found Utricularia ochroleuca on this trip. I was expecting for us to find
Utricularia intermedia, a significantly more common species. I had only ever found
Utricularia ochroleuca once before at this lake, and now, Beth just pulled it out of the
water like it was nothing at all impressive. Not that I'm being childish or snotty, or anything like
that. Hmph.
One other incident on the trip worth noting--the carnivores I have shown you
were not the only ones we encountered on our trip. The last photographs I
took this day were just around sunset. The mosquitos came out of hiding. By
the time we had gotten back to camp, we had fed many. Beth was the worse
off--she had easily 100 bites on her legs, and they swelled up to about
1.5 cm in diameter each. Very impressive!
One other little tale. Nearby this site is
Lake Almanor, a huge lake formed by the creation of a dam around 1913.
This damn flooded the valley near the town of Chester, hence Lake Almanor. It was in
this lake that Hawkeye Rondeau found Utricularia ochroleuca.
I wonder how many fascinating carnivorous plant sites disappeared when this
happened?
P.S. Since I wrote this, I thought I had discovered a population of Utricularia ochroleuca at
Grass Lake, but since concluded it was just a highly distorted population of Utricularia macrorhiza.
Even so, subsequent research has convinced me that I should widen, ever so slightly, my perspective
on Utricularia ochroleuca. I am currently convinced that all my collections from the site I describe in
this trip report are
Utricularia ochroleuca, and that I have never found Utricularia intermedia at this lake. FYI.
