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Wild Sarracenia purpurea in the Michigan Upper Peninsula.

Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2021 5:18 pm
by bcavanau
Over Labor Day my family went to the Michigan Upper Peninsula for a mini vacation. My son brought along his girlfriend, as she had never been. We went to Whitefish Point, Tahquamenon Falls,
Oswald's Bear Ranch, and stopped at any other thing that caught our attention.

I however had a secret, side objective...to find S. purpurea in its native habitat. I did some research ahead of time, and found a known sanctuary.

With little more than some GPS coordinates from Google, I talked my wife into the adventure.

Started off pretty normal, a 35ish mile trip from our cabin to Paradise, MI. From there we turned off on a dirt road, which at some point turned into an "other road" meaning no maintenance, grading, etc. Since we had brought the whole family, this was a little challenging for our mini-van...but we made it.

Destination was the "Pat Grogan Shelldrake Nature Sanctuary" owned by the Michigan Nature Society, which is located at the following GPS coordinates (46.7578600, -85.1401000).

Location on map:
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We traveled for quite some time, before we found our spot:
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After looking around a bit, we found the trail we were looking for:
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After coming to a clearing, I grabbed this panoramic photo of the overall area:
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Then moments later I spotted my first subject, pretty much all by itself.
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And then, another.
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I was quite happy to have found them...but then about 1/4 around the path, we found the mother-load. They were literally everywhere, and you had to be careful where you stepped, as the trail was overgrown with moss as plants....they were everywhere.
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Looking around you could see thousands of the flowers that had started to wilt and form seed pods, they were hard to see in the photos, but I could have gone on for hours taking photos. Unfortunately my wife vetoed my plans, and we headed back into town for dinner.

It was a great trip, and even better that I got to incorporate my newest hobby. I have already started to research other spots to visit. It is reported that there are some drosera here as well, but I didn't happen to come across any.

Enjoy.

Re: Wild Sarracenia purpurea in the Michigan Upper Peninsula.

Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2021 6:22 pm
by bcavanau
Additional information...

I grabbed a satellite view from Google maps.
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In the attached:
- X is where we parked.
- Red outline is approximate path.
- Yellow box is around where I found the first couple plants.
- Green box is the "mother-load" area.

Re: Wild Sarracenia purpurea in the Michigan Upper Peninsula.

Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2021 6:49 pm
by Panman
That is terrific. What an exciting find! I've dragged my wife around the Green Swamp Preserve in North Carolina. She was not nearly as excited as I was.

Re: Wild Sarracenia purpurea in the Michigan Upper Peninsula.

Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2021 2:00 am
by MikeB
Panman wrote: Wed Sep 08, 2021 6:49 pm That is terrific. What an exciting find! I've dragged my wife around the Green Swamp Preserve in North Carolina. She was not nearly as excited as I was.
"Honey, let's make a trip to the the Green Swamp! While I look for carnivorous plants, you can feed the mosquitoes!" :lol:

Needless to say, almost all of my carnivorous plant trips are solo (or with another local CP nut).