There are really two reasons to go to southern Oregon, botanically speaking that is. The vast fens teeming with endemics and the succulent riddled crags. Darlingtonia is the primary interesting inhabitant of the fens (and I'll get to the crags before Valentine's Day). As I've already mentioned in my previous posts, the area in question (southern Oregon and Northern California) has strange soil chemistry chockablock with various metals incompatible to plants sensibilities due to major geological events about 150mya. The soil is actually basic and (depending on your definition of a bog) when perpetually wet, it becomes a fen.

The hills have a Very interesting hydrology. You'd think it should be desert with the heat and drought, except that randomly here is cold fresh clear water just exiting the side of a hill and pouring down into the river below. It's something I've never really seen anywhere else. The strange combo of wet bad soil and hot full sun makes a great place to grow carnivorous plants. Darlingtonia grows anywhere that it is perpetually wet, usually In very shallow (1/8th inch or so) running water. The plant has a hole in the hood just behind the moustache for bugs, attracted by nectaries, to climb up in. Once inside, the insects exhibit their lack of clarity-of-mind by attempting to exit through the "windows" above while completely forgetting the door at their feet. It's funny to watch in a sort of macabre way. There are hairs inside the pitcher that direct the insects back down the tube and keep them there.

The level of anthocyanins present is both genetic and environmental. According to things I remember reading, this member of Sarracenaceae doesn't produce its own enzymes for digesting it's prey: it's just water inside the tubes that contains bacteria that digest the insects for the plant.

Overall view of my favorite fen this spring. I am actually standing atop the source hill for the stream to get the photo. Behind me is dry pine forest.

Requisite floral display.