pitcher plants – Richard Rathe's Reflections

Okefenokee Canoe Trip 2024

After doing the Green Trail to Bluff Lake and Round Top three years ago—this year we set out to retrace My First Trip in 2004 on the Red Trail and cut back via Floyds Island. My old friend Peter from Minnesota and youngest brother Bruce from Wisconsin joined me. [Gallery]

*Okefenokee Route Map 2024 [source:fws.gov]*

Paddling Video with Music

Day 1 – Maul Hammock (12 Miles)

We parked at the Suwannee Canal Entrance and got shuttled up to Kingfisher Landing. Since there were three of us I used my Inflatable Kayak for the first time on an overnight trip.

We got started in the late AM knowing there would be weather blowing in by nightfall. It rained lightly in the afternoon and then poured for about an hour. We got to the Maul Hammock Chickee an hour before dark.

It became very windy but fortunately most of the rain was over. We had a raucous night with the rainflies flapping in the gusts over 25mph! Amazingly, nothing broke and nothing blew away that we couldn’t retrieve!

Day 2 – Big Water (~10 Miles)

The second day was much easier—shorter by about two miles and paddling with the current. (This is the actual start of the Suwannee River that flows to the Gulf of Mexico.) The trail narrows as it crosses one or more “sills” that divide up the wetlands.

We made it to the Big Water Chickee without much difficulty and had a leisurely dinner of beans, rice, and beer!

It was a cold night (38°) but much less windy.

Day 3 – Floyds Island (~9 Miles)

The next day was new territory for all of us. Just below Big Water we passed through an area that burned in the early 2000s—acres and acres of standing dead cypress trees. While this was sad to see, the swamp does go through periodic droughts and fire is a part of the ecology. [Fire Map]

Golden Club - Orontium aquaticum — *Golden Club – Orontium aquaticum*

We turned onto the Green Trail and paddled against a slight current up a narrow (but very pleasant) trail through the cypress. This ended at an embankment and higher ground covered with large pines, oaks, and magnolia trees.

The campsite sits in front of a three-room cabin built about a hundred years ago. It is flanked by two huge oak trees, one of which is encroaching on the porch. There are several moldering documents on the wall (one of which is reproduced here). There is also a fascinating registry book dating back to 2021 completely filled with stories, poems, and drawings.

This article on the Human History of the Okefenokee Swamp makes interesting reading!

Day 4 – Back to the Suwannee Canal (15 Miles)

Our last day began with portaging boats and equipment to the opposite side of the island (0.2 mile). (There is a convenient cart at the site to assist with this!)

I’ll mention that we saw numerous Pitcher Plants on this trip, most of which were dried and left over from last season.

This was a long day but worth it given the time we had. We pulled into the take-out about an hour after dark. The Suwannee Canal facility is setup for after hours arrivals with an on-demand street light over the boat ramp and an automatic gate to let us out.

Trail's End After Dark — *Trail’s End After Dark*

More Photos…

Okefenokee Canoe Trip 2021

I last traveled to the Okefenokee in 2004, and I had been hoping to return sooner. My return was delayed in part by a multi-year drought and Major Fires in 2011. This year the water was high thanks to record rainfall in the late summer.

We left our car at the Suwannee Canal entrance and took advantage of a convenient shuttle service to get our canoe and gear up to Kingfisher Landing (about 30 miles north). From there we made our way south via a combination of canals, streams, prairies, sills, and ponds. Click below for an annotated video of our trip…

We started by following the Green Trail along a winding series of small canals until we reached our first campsite on the Bluff Lake Chickee. We got there with plenty of time to fix an early dinner and relax.

There are several species of carnivorous plants in the swamp, including three pitcher plants. We saw many examples of two of these: the Parrot Pitcher Plant and the Hooded Pitcher Plant. There were many standing dead trees with charred trunks left over from fires a decade ago, but the loss was not total. There were many older living trees interspersed with the dead, and lots of young Bald Cypress trees coming up underneath.

Yellow and Purple Bladderworts were blooming in abundance, occasional white Fragrant Waterlilies, and we even saw one Hooded Pitcher Plant putting up a flower!

After a brief time on the connecting Blue Trail we picked up the Purple Trail that loops out into the Chase Prairie and our next chickee.

These prairies are a mix of open water, marsh, and small islands with trees. The Round Top Chickee boasts a 360º view of this robust ecology. We saw more birds here including Sandhill Cranes and Egrets. We heard Barred Owls calling all around us in the evening. We got a bit of rain during the night so the morning was grey and damp.

There was a small box for a trail journal on this chickee, but all we found were notes written on toilet paper rolls railing about “Nancy Pelosi”?!

Turns out they were referring to the resident six foot gator who hung about the chickee the entire time we were there. This is likely because earlier visitors had fed it (a very BAD idea!). Gators that remain too close to humans usually lose their lives! Sad.

After the overnight drizzle we packed up in the grey dawn and continued on the Purple Trail to the next big intersection. The sun came out as we turned east on the Orange Trail. This is a major canal flowing to the west that got larger and larger as we approached the visitor center. We had lunch on the Coffee Bay platform just before the rain started. About a mile from the take-out it started to pour. By the time we had the gear all packed the late afternoon sun broke through.

Panhandle Pitcher Plant Expedition 2020

The last time I went hunting for Pitcher Plants was 2017. This year I went about two weeks earlier and learned more about their distribution and lifecycles. I visited six sites in all, moving from Florida into Alabama. [Gallery] I saw mostly pitcher plant flowers as I moved west, apparently the flowers emerge days to weeks before the funnel-shaped leaves.

My first stop was Clear Creek Nature Trail (which is actually part of Whiting Field Naval Air Station). They maintain a nice boardwalk so you can walk over and among numerous White-Top Pitcher Plants.

I had not been to this site since 2013, and the plants were just beginning to emerge. I took a few photos of what was there, and caught a cryptic denizen I did not see until I reviewed the photos at home.

Green Tree Frog on White-Top Pitcher Plant

My next stop was nearby, the Yellow River Marsh Preserve. Unfortunately for me (not the preserve) there had been a recent prescribed burn in that area. I could find only one clump of pitcher plants on the perimeter of the small pond where they had been plentiful in the past.

Fortunately I did not have to go far, just a few steps over to the ditches on either side of the local road!

There were also many Sundews present, including the “Threadleaf” species I’d wondered about in the past (saying it looked like a cross between a “sundew and a fern”). Turns out I was half right!

I ended the first day at Tarkiln Bayou Preserve with about an hour of daylight remaining. They had a nice boardwalk and there were many White-Top Pitcher Plants present in one wet area, along with several Grass Pink Orchids!

The next day was a bust as far as Pitcher Plants go, but I got a chance to explore two new areas that in a few weeks will probably be full of new growth. The first was Weeks Bay Pitcher Plant Bog with extensive boardwalk over and around a large wetland. There were a few flowers emerging from the straw and lots of Fern Fiddleheads unfurling.

I also caught this Green Anole displaying his throat patch.

The second site was much larger, the Splinter Hill Bog Preserve (owned by the Nature Conservancy). There appeared to be several acres of last year’s Pitcher Plants with a few leaves and flowers beginning to emerge. It should be spectacular in a few weeks if there is enough rain.

I went on a long walk into a large tract of Longleaf Pine uplands and was rewarded by several unexpected sightings. After a short boardwalk I saw my first Butterwort (another carnivorous genus)!

Then something even more surprising, peeking out of the straw along the trail were several miniature Blue Irises?! It turns out these are Dwarf Woodland Irises. The ground was not obviously wet and I was climbing a gentle hillside. Wow! I did not see that coming…

I had planned to camp at Wright Lake in the Apalachicola National Forest but it remains closed after last year’s hurricanes. So I stayed in a motel and headed down there on my third morning not knowing what to expect. I was amply rewarded with the best showing of the entire trip!

About four miles north of the little town of Sumatra I noticed a large, recently burned area with many large yellow blooms of Trumpet-Leaf Pitcher Plants. I parked and started walking over the slightly wet uneven ground. I was not disappointed. In addition to the large pitchers there were Purple Flower Pitcher Plants, and what I think were last year’s Parrot Pitcher Plants (not yet emerging this year). There were also Orchids in abundance, at least two species of Butterwort and Sundews everywhere! A True Motherlode!!

Godfrey’s Butterwort (*Pinguicula ionantha*)

[More photos, signs, maps in the Gallery]