I live near a National Forest in SC and it would be neat to see Venus Fly Traps there. Nowadays they are only officially considered to be a few counties north. Historically they were recorded in a watershed at the southeast end of the forest. Occasionally people say that they are in the forest, but I haven’t confirmed where exactly.
Two of the main challenges to finding them are the giant size of the forest (it’s bigger than a metropolitan area) and the difficulty of getting through a muddy bog away from trails. To be clear, I don’t want them to get poached because of how much better it is that they are in nature, whereas I can buy them for low prices in stores or online.
On Reddit, a user wrote that he saw Carnivorous Plants or Fly Traps in a specific “Carolina Bay” style bog. He wrote that to get to the “Bay,” you take a trail that runs south from a campground.
So I biked the trails and roads around that area. I saw a patch of Pitcher Plants (Sarracenia Flava) visible from the trail. An old trail sign there talks about Carnivorous Plants. The bog is at the headwaters of a creek that flows into a seaside inlet.
However, for me to go off of the trails and farther into the swamps, it would be tough. The Number 1 difficulty is that the swamp is is made of sinking mud, like a thick floating carpet. It’s the source area for a creek’s water. Even if I wore snakeboots, I think that they would get stuck in the mud. Maybe I would need snowshores or to build my own boardwalk there. And ultimately I don’t even know if the Venus Fly Traps are there.
Can someone please comment if they have hiked into “Carolina Bays” before like that? Is it safe? Do I need snowshoes, or is there some other way to keep myself from sinking? I went in early June and the ground should be drier in August, but probably it will still be too muddy because the spot is the headwater basin for a creek.
I have seen Venus flytraps in the wild. This was at Holly Shelter Game Land, and as I recall, I didn’t have to go through mucky areas. The flyraps grew in the wiregrass area – hidden under the wiregrass so that I could only see them by going down on hands and knees and parting the wiregrass with my hands. I wasn’t able to get good pictures due to the limitations of my camera, and now I can’t remember where in Holly Shelter it was.
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Thanks. I don’t know how deep into the “Carolina Bay” swamp I would need to go to find the plants.
Jason,
This particular Carolina Bay is 2000 feet by 4000 feet. It’s the headwater area for a creek. It has overgrowth, and the spot where I saw Pitcher Plants is in the middle of the “Bay,” and is where my shoes sink into the mud. The farther I get from the trail in the direction of the plants, the more likely I would be to sink further into the mud.
You could try using a drone. You must get special permission in National Parks. I’m not sure of the guidelines for National Forests. It would be risky. If the drone goes down, you probably couldn’t retrieve it. You probably want to scout out an area in this manner before building a boardwalk.
I have also seen floating docks for fishing. Maybe get a few sections and move them from back to front to get you through the wet areas without sinking.
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The bay rim would be a likely spot to hunt for flytraps. The bay interior can be tough to move in, deep muck/water, and not the best habitat. They’re not very conspicuous if not blooming and, even then, the flowers aren’t showy.
There’s only one county in SC with current populations. Finding them in their historic range would be awesome but also unlikely. Professional botanists survey for federally listed species but maybe you’ll get lucky.
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Drones and docks are very creative. A downside of a drone is that it doesn’t zoom in well AFAIK on such small plants. Boardwalks and docks seem heavy to carry. But plank docks still seem like one of the more feasible ideas. Online places sell bogshoes that look like plastic snowshoes. I don’t know if they are any good.
Dear Tallastro,
I found sundews in a handful of places in SC and NC and they were practically all either roadside ditches or else wet trailbeds and wet dirt roadbeds. The dirt in the roadbed gets wet and becomes an open enough area for the Sundews.
Pitcher Plants in SC have been in pretty wet boglike areas, although some were in grassy ditches. But they seem to prefer more grassy, wetter areas than the Sundews.
So I think that the rim area like you are talking about is a good option.
Can I post an aerial view here with the street and identifying names taken out?
It’s such a very overgrown “Bay” off of the trails that it makes me even skeptical that the person actually went off the trail into the Bay.
Another lady told me that she saw them on the Power Line routes that run near a swamp in this same forest. I am guessing that there are warning signs not to go along the Power Line routes, so am hesitant to go there too. The route that she is talking about would be about 10 miles long, about 10 miles north of the Carolina Bay that I was discussing.
Professional Naturalists have told me about at least two spots south of the county you mentioned with current populations, but they didn’t tell me where the spots were. The area is so vast and the plants are so small that unless you know the spot, you have a needle in a haystack chance of finding them.