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Showing results for tags 'Mobile Co AL'.
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Of all the areas I've seen in the wild, Mobile County seems to be the absolute worst in terms of Sarracenia habitat. I thought other places were pretty bad, but even in somewhat remote areas in Mobile Co. where plants have historically existed, we couldn't find anything. In the past, this County was abundant with S. leucophylla, S. rosea, S. psittacina, S. alata, and even some S. flavas were reported to exist way back in the day. Today, if you want to visit the large fields of S. leucophyllas, you can't because that field is now part of a house, and the rest of the former Savanna has been altered for farming purposes. S. flava is extremely rare in Alabama, and it no longer exists in Mobile County. Most of the land we observed here was disturbed or destroyed, very little has been left untouched. We were hopeful to find S. rosea in this area but the plants eluded us, and we had no luck. Do they still exist? I have no idea, but there's still hope that maybe some small pockets of plants are alive. I think this area has been decimated because the big city (Mobile) has a large population, which has placed a tremendous amount of pressure on the land and surrounding vicinity. The closer you are to a large population of people, the less of a chance anything is still extant. It reminds me of the San Francisco Peninsula, California (my hometown): land is so scarce and the population is so dense, even in state owned preserves, populations of rare plants have been recently destroyed to update gas pipelines. Good thing Sarracenia aren't from around here: they would have been extinct decades ago! Most of what we found were the alata/leucophylla hybrids, and some were so overgrown and hard to reach that we didn't get a chance to take photos. Some of the fields that we visited were bone dry and didn't have a single Sarracenia there (although L. catesbaeis were there!). I suspect these areas may have been drained a while back. The good news is we did find one very special patch of plants of almost pure S. alatas! This site is very well managed and will persist in the years to come since it's protected and hidden. Overview of the habitat: in the foreground, you might be able to spot some fringe orchids: Plants here were thriving: and dense, although the grass was starting to get pretty thick despite recent burning: Some neat red throat plants, reminds me of the red throated variants of S. alabamensis: A few hybrids were found, but no pure S. leucophylla were here. It's hard to say what existed decades ago because the surrounding area is surprisingly a dense city: Some of these hybrids were pretty neat: this one made me jealous, hehe: These plants were pretty unique: some had deep maroon throats, and they were pretty big too: Homies in situ. From L to R: Kate, Axel, and Damon: and last but not least, a cool lynx spider:
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- Sarracenia alata in the wild
- sarracenia alata in situ
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