Sarracenia flava rugelii, etc. in habitat, Covington Co, AL

[meizwang]

All of the sites I've seen in Covington Co, AL are seepage slope bogs: water from uphill slowly percolates into an open field, and the area that stays consistently saturated is filled with Sarracenia. After visiting countless sites, one major observation was made: S. flava var. rugelii seems to be more tolerant of water-logged habitat in comparison to S. leucophylla. Perhaps the yellow trumpet pitcher plant has a different root system by which it can tolerate slightly lower levels of oxygen, but who knows. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule: anytime you have moving water, even if it's really mucky and boggy, S. lecuophylla can grow there.

With all that in mind,the first photo below is an overview of a population of mainly S. flava var. rugelii. In the foreground, there's a dried up creek filled with tulip trees...it's too bad we didn't get to see them in bloom because those flowers are amazing! In the background, you can see a dense population of yellow trumpet pitcher plants. There's 2-3 main seeps that feed this bog:

And as you can see, this site is dominated by S. flava var. rugelii:

Homies in situ. I suppose on the other side of the pond, one would call them "mates" in situ:

And here you can see how the plants grow from the water source. What you can't really tell from the photo is that almost every plant here is gigantic:

Some huge lids:

Same trap with my hand to sort-of show scale. My hand isn't as fat as it used to be, haha:

This spot is really beautiful, although it was hard to find because it occurs in the middle of a forest that doesn't seem like it would be conducive of this habitat:

A few beauties, although they were past their prime:

S. leucophylla was also at this site, although they hadn't yet produced fall pitchers:

And a S. x moorei just popped open:

This one had an alien eye:

WE found the very rare S. flava var. maxima here, and I'll post pics shortly once they're uploaded.