Chicxulub's Nature Preserve (carnivorous plants, orchids, etc)

[Chicxulub]

Sweet! Have you ever thought of joining a plant forum?

No interest in doing so for me. I'm in several conservation groups irl, I only share this here because some people seem to like it.

 

[Hendre]

Lovely stuff!
Your polygala are VASTLY different to the stuff I see down the road here. How cool!

 

[tlindsey]

Great plants especially the Sun Dew. No Venus Fly Traps? What type of Mantis in the pic?

 

[Chicxulub]

Great plants especially the Sun Dew. No Venus Fly Traps? What type of Mantis in the pic?

The mantis is a southern grass mantid, known to science as Thesprotia graminis. This is a genus primarily found in South America, but this one species has colonized the southeastern United States.

There are VFT on this site, but they're a little science experiment being run by my nature padawan in his free time, not natives. I don't present them in any media that goes public for fear of being accused of misrepresenting the preserve.

In the wild, VFTs are native to the Carolinas and the Florida panhandle, they (and many other carnivorous plant species) skip the overland area where the FL peninsual attaches to the continental US. They all grow just fine here, but they were either never present or extirpated during the complete and utter destruction of habitat through logging that occurred in this part of the country around the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. And I do mean complete- the habitat that was present prior to the longleaf pine extirpation, a habitat that was contiguous open grassy savanna that stretched unbroken from Virginia to eastern Texas now exists in a natural state in a handful of pockets totalling a few hundred thousand acres instead of the original several hundred thousand square miles. This is why I do the work I do- there has been so much loss that it is difficult to truly comprehend and every acre matters at this point.

My piece of land is of unusually good quality in that it was open grassy savanna which never had a particularly heavy tree cover historically, so it was able to survive until about 2000 before human interferance caused the land to degrade in quality (which in the grand scheme of things is as close to pristine as is possible to be found these days). I started rehabilitating it in 2014, so a lot of the stuff that would typically be lost is still here. Even so, no sign of native VFT, even if a bunch of other stuff that's otherwise extirpated from the region has popped back up, which leads me to believe that they were never present, at least at this particular site.

 

[tlindsey]

The mantis is a southern grass mantid, known to science as Thesprotia graminis. This is a genus primarily found in South America, but this one species has colonized the southeastern United States.

There are VFT on this site, but they're a little science experiment being run by my nature padawan in his free time, not natives. I don't present them in any media that goes public for fear of being accused of misrepresenting the preserve.

In the wild, VFTs are native to the Carolinas and the Florida panhandle, they (and many other carnivorous plant species) skip the overland area where the FL peninsual attaches to the continental US. They all grow just fine here, but they were either never present or extirpated during the complete and utter destruction of habitat through logging that occurred in this part of the country around the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. And I do mean complete- the habitat that was present prior to the longleaf pine extirpation, a habitat that was contiguous open grassy savanna that stretched unbroken from Virginia to eastern Texas now exists in a natural state in a handful of pockets totalling a few hundred thousand acres instead of the original several hundred thousand square miles. This is why I do the work I do- there has been so much loss that it is difficult to truly comprehend and every acre matters at this point.

My piece of land is of unusually good quality in that it was open grassy savanna which never had a particularly heavy tree cover historically, so it was able to survive until about 2000 before human interferance caused the land to degrade in quality (which in the grand scheme of things is as close to pristine as is possible to be found these days). I started rehabilitating it in 2014, so a lot of the stuff that would typically be lost is still here. Even so, no sign of native VFT, even if a bunch of other stuff that's otherwise extirpated from the region has popped back up, which leads me to believe that they were never present, at least at this particular site.

Wow that's great you took time to explain the history of the land and geographic locations of the VFT.

Thank you for sharing

 

[Fat Homer]

Absolutely love the carnivorous plants! Wish i could just reach through the screen and grab those dark red sundews off your land ?

 

[Hendre]

Absolutely love the carnivorous plants! Wish i could just reach through the screen and grab those dark red sundews off your land ?

You do realise you live in the capital of Drosera right???

 

[Chicxulub]

You do realise you live in the capital of Drosera right???

That may not be giving it *quite* enough credit LOL

That binata tho ?

 

[Hendre]

Binata is the equivalent of capensis by this point, bring me some of those super weird forms!

 

[Fat Homer]

Funny thing is is not that easy for me to find any for purchase... guessing its probably because they are so popular they are always sold out...

So far i’ve only managed to get 1 VFT and 1 Trumpet Pitcher that will soon need to go through their dormant period in the garage since winter is coming...