Emerging flower:
Jim drove me to the last site of the South Carolina trip--a large area that had been poorly logged. Given a chance, it might
recover, but I suspected that foresters were likely to continue to screw up the site. (That's my opinion, and not necessarily
Jim's.) After ranging around we found a few areas with intact carnivorous plants. I thought this
Sarracenia purpurea was particularly darling. All the pitchers had been burned and crisped, yet
it was starting the season with a flower. It is interesting the plant did not abort the flower, and instead was using the limited
resources in its rhizome to produce new leaves.
Jim took me to a few other locations, including a few excellent bays, and
he kindly spent a long time explaining to me the structure of the bays. I had seen countless bays in aerial photographs, but it
was enlightening to experience them on the ground.
The sites Jim took me to, by the way, were all within only about 4 km of each other. Yet the diversity of habitats was
very interesting. It was very kind of Jim to take time from his schedule to show me around. What a nice guy!
Our time up for the day, Jim drove me back to my car. I had several hours of daylight, so I drove back to North Carolina.
