5 replies to this topic

[Random]

Before I show you the plants, I would like to announce my BIG thanks to Daniel O. , who, after I have been searching for months, finally gave me a decent location to find them. Thanks!
Unfortunately not a lot of plants are in flower at that time, and I think that only here they have even started growing (1500 meters ASL), I have been in one of the biggest peat bogs in Bulgaria at about 1800 ASL a few times this month, and there still aren't any plants there. I am just a few days early, since a lot of the pings already had flower stalks, and will probably flower in only a few days. All the plants I found are pale, despite of growing in full sun, perhaps because they are just coming out of dormancy, and only one had a fully formed flower, but I didn't take a picture of it. The number of Droseras, though, caught me by surprise, they are supposed to have almost disappeared from this mountain, with a few reintroduction attempts, all of them unsuccessful, though. Yet, in that location, they had formed a carpet in quite a few places, and some were quite big (about as big as the palm of my hand!), probably because it is further from the city than most of the other sphagnum bogs, and it is pretty unknown (it's a tiny ski track, and people only go there in winter), so, withouth Daniel's help, I would never have found it, for which I thank him again! Thanks!
I have plenty of pictures, but I will only show you three, cause I have a video for you to see everything ^^
Most of the pings looked like this, with flower stalks, but the flowers aren't formed..

There were red spots like this one all over the track, with a lot of D. Rotundifolia.


And here is the video, sorry for the poor quality, but it still gives you an idea of what the place is like. It's a tiny ski track, like I said.

I will visit some higher locations soon enough, in a few weeks, when the weather gets warm high up in the mountains, too. Then I will add more pictures (Hopefully they would have flowered by then)

Edited by Random, 13 June 2012 - 15:15 PM.

[Daniel O.]

Hi Mario,

so finally you have found them, isn´t it a good feeling.
Yes, at this location at about 1515 meters you can find also D. rotundifolia. About 10 years ago the population was even bigger but when they leveled the ski slope a few years ago a lot of plants disappeared, last year i saw again a lot of plants.

I visited this location 3 weeks ago and the D. rotundifolia hadn´t started to grow but a lot of P. balcanica have already been in flower.
So probably you have seen some of the last flowers like we can see in your first picture, these plants have already flowered and you can see the ripening seed capsules.

Best regards,
Daniel

[Random]

Good feeling, indeed  
Those were seed capsules? Silly me, excuse my ignorance, I've never seen those plants before  :)
Today I visited one of the higher places, at 1800 ASL, this is what it looks like (this picture was not taken by me, I found it on the internet, and this is what a sunset at the reserve looks like in autumn), it is the biggest Sphagnum bog in Bulgaria.

Previously I've looked deep into the bog, but I never found any pings there. This time I took the path at the southern border of the reserve, and after walking for about 10 minutes, I saw little flowers in the grass.

There was a big field of Pinguiculas, right next to the path, like, 1 meter away from it. That is strange, since deep in the reserve, there are none, only on the borders.. probably because deep in the reserve everything is a carpet of life sphagnum, and I've noticed they thrive in peat better than sphagnum. Although deeper, there is D. Rotundifolia in the sphagnum, but it is still too early - in a few weeks it would have grown.
Three flowers on one plant (the third one is at the base, you can see it forming)

The field next to the path was covered with plantlets, all the way.


A pale plant with a forming stalk

And this is how the mountain looks, beyond the reserve. I think that the peak covered in mist is Cherni peak, the tallest in that mountain, I could be mistaken, though, since it has a lot of peaks at that altitude (9 or 10)

All over the reserve, there are tiny streams of running water, like this one. I noticed the pings have the tendancy to grow around them.

I will upload more pics of D. Rotundifolia in the same location in a few weeks, when it starts growing there (there should be a lot).

[Zlatokrt]

Very nice! One of my colleagues (actually he was the leader of my master thesis...) perform a field research of Bulgarian mires (not only them) and he found them very interesting
Adam

[Alexander Nijman]

Pinguicula are usely growing at those seepage locations while Drosera rotundifolia is more a typical plant of acid bogconditions. Often among sphagnum. D. rotundifolia is one of the most common CP s in Northern and Western Europe.

Alexander

[Carlos Rohrbacher]

Nice drosera, pinguicula, aldrovanda and utricularia locations, thanks for sharing.