Plants and Wildlife

Plants and Wildlife

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Category: Wetland Plants
I found this story about Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) compelling; its informative, but also weaves a story of time and place, pulling the reader into the world of a young girl and her flinty aunt, collecting pokeweed for dye and making "poke sallet", a thrice blanched dish.

Pokeweed is a common native plant, generally growing between 4-8 feet tall and is easily identifiable by its dark berries. All parts of the plant are highly toxic to humans, pets and livestock unless boiled multiple times to remove the toxins. The name pokeweed derives from the Native American word for 'blood', referring to the berries dark red juice that can be used as a dye. While not a wetland plant, it can be found around wetland borders or other disturbed habitats.

For many people, in a world awash with distractions, a story like this has the power to captivate, particularly those not particularly interested in plants or botany. It can bring a plants importance and role to life, and will be remembered far longer than any textbook description. Stories like this about wetlands are sorely needed. For people who have little knowledge of wetlands and frankly, not enough time or interest, this type of narrative can pique curiosity and set the reader down the path to learn why wetlands are an important resource to us all. Sometimes. Maybe.

USDA Pokeweed Page
USDA Pokeweed Photo

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Category: Wetland Plants
The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk is located in the hip SONO (SOuth NOrwalk) part of town, in a refurbished 1860s factory on the shore of the Norwalk River. The aquarium, not the largest in the region, does have a unique vision; its sole focus is on the fish and wildlife found in Connecticut rivers, the Long Island Sound and the deeper near shore waters of the Atlantic.

The gallery devoted to salt marshes has diamondback terrapins, seahorses, Atlantic silversides, mummichogs and fiddler crabs. It also explains the difference between the high and low marsh, and their role in acting as a nursery for much of the life found in the Long Island Sound. It's worth a visit!

A few (poorly lit) shots of the exhibit are below:



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Category: Wetland Plants
The Venus fly trap (Dionaea muscipula), is one of the best known wetland plants due to its carnivorous appetite and appearance as Audrey II in the cult classic, "Little Shop of Horrors". It is a marvel of evolution - being earthbound and immobile in nutrient poor soil, how else can a plant obtain nutrition? From wayward insects. The selective pressures must have been so strong that a plant, over the course of millenia, developed an trap, actually a modified leaf, which can clamp shut in a tenth of a second on a hapless ant, fly or beetle plonking a trigger hair ever so gently. Lacking a proper gut, the mouth of a the flytrap secretes digestive juices, dissolving the insect over the course of a week, fortifying the plant. Its native habit is remarkably small, and shrinking. It is found only within a 60-mile radius of Wilmington, North Carolina.
Carnivorous plants unique abilities did not escape Charles Darwin's attention, he wrote the book, "Insectivorous Plants" largely about the Sundew plant, a cousin to the flytrap, in 1875. The book, still used as a reference, can be downloaded for free from Project Gutenberg here.
Working in a greenhouse as a teen, flytraps were always sold in miniature terrariums, and I brought a few home over the years but was never was successful in keeping them alive for long - my mistake was feeding them small amounts of ground beef, which promptly rotted, killing the stalk. Looking back, I probably should have put a dead ant or two in the maw of the venus fly trap instead. The fly traps I purchased were likely poached, it seems many of them are, to be sold as greenhouse novelties. Since then, flytrap poaching has increased, to the point that the North Carolina legislature just passed a law declaring that poaching Venus fly traps is now a felony, rather than a misdeminor with a paltry $50 fine. In January 2015, poachers were caught redhanded with almost 1,000 Venus fly traps, and charged under the more stringent law. Seymour would be proud.

Further Reading:
The Mysterious Venus Flytrap
Video of flytrap closing
North Carolina cracks down on Venus flytrap poachers

Subcategories

Wetland Plants

A section about Wetland plants and their unique features.

Wetland Wildlife

A section about Wildlife found in wetlands.

Wetlands in the News

29 April 2024