Pitcher plants. (
)
Did you know that carnivorous plants lurk in our area? The “business end” of our region’s carnivorous “purple pitcher plant” remains intact and leathery through the winter season, turning from bright green with red veins to a deep burgundy color, and continues to attract, capture, and digest small insects that emerge during mid-winter thaws.
If you look closely, you’ll see the tiny, downward-pointing “hairs” in each rain-filled “pitcher,” which allow insects to walk in, but bar them from escaping.
Along with our area’s carnivorous “sundew” plant, the pitcher plant is found only in bogs that have very specific Ph and water purity parameters, occurring within Orange County only in Chester, Warwick, Monroe, and a few other scattered locales.
The winter ice in the bogs allows our New York natural history council researchers to survey our region’s pitchers’ health and abundance.
The biodiversity (number of *different species* of plants and animals) of our Lower Hudson Valley is among the highest in North America, but taken for granted by too many. Get out and poke around some more, this winter; you might discover a new population of a rare and protected species.
Jay Westerveld
Ecologist, NYNH
Jay Westerveld has been researching natural and cultural history for over 40 years throughout America, Europe, Asia and the South Pacific. He is a former visiting lecturer with Columbia University, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the NY Entomological Society, the American Museum of Natural History, Northeast Partners in Amphibian Conservation, the Northeast Natural History Association, the National University of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar, and others. In 2008, the NYS Assembly recognized him for his research with the endangered bog turtle in NY.