Carolina Carnivores - Yikes
/As I was walking through the boatyard yesterday, I noticed a colorful U-Haul truck parked next to the dock. You know how U-Haul always pictures a travel destination or landmark on the sides of their truck from the state they’re registered in? Well, this truck was from North Carolina and the image was a huge Venus flytrap. According to Wiki “the Venus flytrap, Dionaea muscipula, is a carnivorous plant native to subtropical wetlands on the East Coast of the United States in North Carolina and South Carolina”. The caption was “North Carolina - Carnivores of the Green Swamp Preserve” which, of course, got me to thinking.
Where the heck is the Green Swamp Preserve? Is it far? Are there really lots of carnivorous plants there? What else is there to do around there? After all, we’re pretty close to the North Carolina border, maybe this is a day-off activity for the captain and me. Well, it’s a 310 mile, 5 hour ride … probably not a good daytrip.
Too far for a daytrip!
Then it dawned on me I’d just seen lots of carnivorous plants at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens in Richmond. Pitcher plants are native to North America from Labrador to Florida and Iowa and the Ginter Gardens had hundreds of them on display.
For some reason, I thought carnivorous plants were pretty rare, but I just learned that there are ~750 species of carnivorous plants worldwide … not so rare. Driving 5 hours to see a not-so-rare plant might not be the best use of our day off after all. I’ll go back to the drawing board for day-off activities, but perhaps we should watch Little Shop of Horrors again.
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