Drosera anglica:
In contrast with my recent experiences in Idaho's
Tranquil Basin, where I searched for hours before finding carnivorous plants,
I found these dainties within moments of walking out onto the surface of the lake.
The surface of the mat was painted with the red foliage of Drosera anglica, and spangled with their
little white flowers.
By the phrase, "walking out onto the surface of the lake", I don't mean to suggest I have a messiah
complex. I was able to stay bouyed on the surface of the water because Lake #1
had a fantastically well-developed floating Sphagnum mat. Walking
on such a mat is like traversing a giant waterbed--the ground is soft and undulates underfoot. I had only seen a
mat this well-developed at a few other sites--for example a famous carnivorous plant site in California (which I
describe in my 2003 Sierra Nevada field trip report).
While I definitely wanted to look
at the sundews, I was actually more interested in looking for Utricularia. I
started a complete survey of the lake. This was made a little uncomfortable by the presence of great numbers of leeches
in the water (damn, I really, really hate leeches) but fortunately none attached to me as I pushed through the
thigh-deep water among the sedges.
