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Utricularia and Drosera in eastern Victorian highlands


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It's been awhile since I've posted a fieldtrip report on the forum- actually it has been years. I went away last weekend with a friend and thought that our findings were worthy of uploading.

I've searched most of Victoria for CPs and orchids but the eaestern part of the state and the alpine areas are some that I have dedicated little time to. The beauty of these areas is that while most CPs are dormant or have died off in the coastal and lower altitude areas, in the highlands, everything is at its peak in Summer.

We headed off late on Friday night to camp at the town of Wulgulmerang. I use the word town loosely as there isn't actually a town there, only a few interspersed farmhouses. We arrived at 4.30 in the morning to be greeted with the acrid smell of smoke emanating from the nearby bushfires in the Bonang area close by.

After a couple of hours sleep we headed off towards the Mt. Cobberas region where sub-alpine bogs frequent grassy plains. The first stop was one such plain that I had visited a coule of years back in April. It was a little late in the season then and the Utricularia dichotoma were all but finished even though the area was quite wet. This season, the srea was actually quite dry which affected the numbers of flowering plants, but we still did manage to find plenty of flowers in protected areas.

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Also found a couple of greenhood orchids (Diplodium decurvum) in the forest surrounding the plain.

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more to follow.....

Edited by Sean Spence
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Onwards we stopped at a small seep along the side of the road. Here we found more U. dichotoma as well as Drosera gracilis (this species was altered from D. peltata var. gracilis to D. peltata not long ago, but I believe it is only a matter of time before these montane forms revert back to D. gracilis as they are quite different from the red plants found around Sydney). These were on the way out for the season but as the altitude was around 1200m we were hopeful that others at higher altitudes would be in better condition.

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Thanks guys, lots more images to post yet from this trip but haven't had the time.

Michael- these locations will be under snow in a few months. The plants have an inverted flowering season, opposite to those in lower altitudes.

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Just noticed that the tracks that we travelled along during the initial part of the trip and the spot that we camped have all now been closed due to the bushfire activity. Luckily we did this last weekend.

The next location involved a trip along a 4x4 track up towards Mt. Cobberas. A tyre was ruptured on this track which caused us to be extra careful and paranoid for the remainder of the trip.

Up this track towards Mt. Cobberas an area called "The Playgrounds" can be found. These are plains containing sphagnum bogs with many species of orchid as well as a few CPs. Unfortunately our GPS coordinates did not work our for the orchids but U. dichotoma and D. gracilis were very common in the bogs.

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with Mt. Cobberas in the background

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U. dichotoma and D. gracilis growing together in sphagnum.

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Spiranthes alpicola, oneof the few orchids we did find up there.

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We checked out a number of other locations whilst on our way to our campsite for the night but only found more of the same. It was good to see that D. gracilis has a much larger range in the montane regions than I had previously thought.

Edited by Sean Spence
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The second and final day was to be spent heading up to the Bogong High Plains and ski village of Falls Creek.

We arrived late morning and stopped at the first bog that we noticed from the car. The area consisted of a large treeless expanse of alpine meadows with the occasional sphagnum seep.

This bog was fed by a small stream that led to a small lake not far away. We caught this bog when it was at its best.

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Dead trees on the hills surrounding the plain from the bushfires of 2009 that decimated the area.

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The main reason for visiting this location was the hope of finding Utricularia monanthos. I'd never seen the species in its natural habitat before after missing a previous trip a little later in the year. This time the trip had been organised perfectly.

It took us a while to find the first few flowers and Drosera arcturi was abundant along the margins of the wetter areas.

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U. monanthos growing with a small D. arcturi at the base of a small rock. This rock is visible in some of the previous habitat images.

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Growing at the margin of a D. arcturi colony.

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As we wandered around we found more

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and more (with D. arcturi)

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and more

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We never expected to find as many flowers as we did and were over the moon!

Some more images of D. arcturi.

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and to finish at this location, a beautiful cluster of the veined sun orchid, Thelymitra cyanea

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and a single

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It was earlyish afternoon and we had found what we'd been seeking at Falls Creek within an hour. We had the choice of heading to either a lowland location where we may find some late flowering Utricularia beaugleholei or a detour to visit another alpine mountain, Mt. Buffalo where I knew tht a beautiful deep red late emerging form of Drosera auriculata could be found. We chose Mt. Buffalo as the temps were in the low 40 Cs on at the base of the mountains but a comfortable 27 C on the alps.

We arrived mid afternoon and headed for the spot that I believed we would find te D. auriculata. Unfortunately the car would only take us far far before the end of the road n neither of us could realy be bothered walking and sort fo a distance so we aborted that search. On the way there I had noticed some splashes of purple around the margin of Lake Catani. I was confident that these were patches of U. dichotoma.

I was right.

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The inflorescences were very tall compared to the other forms we'd seen the previous day and many more flowers were clustered together. This form appeared very similar to the tuberous form that I had discovered about 10 years ago at a lower altitude. This time I did not think to check for tubers. There was also some variation in flower colour with a pale mauve coloured form quite common.

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the pale form

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You'll notice there havn't been many close ups of the Utriularia flowers. This was bcause I wasn't keen on laying in water to get th shots. Call me soft.

The final stop at Mt. Buffalo was a small stream that cut under the main road. Alongside the road growing on the rocks were small colony of Drosera gracilis. One of the few chances we'd had to get a clear shot at the plants.

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From there, 5 hours later we were home. We'd travelled 1400kms and gone as high as 1800m in altitude. It's amazing what you can get done in less than 2 days.

We didn't find the orchids that we were hoping, but were more that compensated with the amount of CPs we found at a time of year that most would consider the poorest time of year in this part of the world.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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