Oh, and here's Patricia. She wants you to read the article and follow me on Neocities.

I don’t mean biologically, I mean ethically, and I’m only really talking about those of us living in consumer societies. Humans who live the way most of us do, buying meat pre-packaged from the supermarket, from selectively bred, genetically modified animals raised and slaughtered industrially by someone else, bares absolutely no resemblance to natural carnivory.

Denizens of the Marl,

My main focus was to introduce an early blooming species that I don’t know if I talked about ever. I usually miss my window to see this plant and for some reason I’ve never gotten close enough to photograph it properly, you can kinda see a gleam of light on the glandular hairs but not well enough to show structure.

Triantha glutinosa, blooms in early June in Ohio but can last till late June and in other states occurs in bogs in warm water conditions and blooms much later which is strange to me. I think this must be an adaptive phenotypical thing but you would expect it to be opposite and light blooming also seems to not be the culprit so I don’t know.  False Asphodel is another common name but I honestly prefer calling it sticky or glutinous false ashpodel. As a plant living in these nutrient poor super leached marl flats this plant is a carnivor, protease excretor glandular hair trap specifically, but strangely only on it’s flowering stem and not on it’s minute basal rosette. Opposite of most species that are carnivores most species try to keep traps as far from the flowers as possible which makes sense evolutionary. Glandular traps near an inflorescence seems strange for successful pollination. As it turns out this may be a seldomly pollinated species where most individuals in populations are ancient clones that have formed from rhizome spread overtime in these glacial refugium. The other thing that seems notable is many people studying these false ashpodels (Triantha spp.) run into the same morphology and phenology problems that I have, and have even come to contempt and discourse over specific populations and are evaluating them as part of a biological species complex. I agree on the T. occidentalis western split on all accounts but some of the minor disjunct probable splits seem more complex overall (Central Appalachian mountain populations (TN, VA, SC, GA)

I feel like I can’t stress the importance of this limestone marl and the unique opportunity of getting this close to these plants without any special camera. Though I do wish I had one to display the features properly. Most of the time if you are traversing a fen you have to find and identify petrified marl shelfs or surface travertines, or you are walking on old and ancient tussock clumps from what is usually Carex stricta. Im walking on a displaced gravel shelf with petrified marl and wouldn’t dare to walk off of it and disturb the easily motile banks of loose marl or the suspended marl sediment floating like quick sand. The plants here are fragile and the habitat is equally fragile with many state listed species that cant take damage. Everywhere in the high exposure areas of marl flats are these Drosera rotundifolia and the smooth rounded/heartshaped leaves of grass of parnassas, which is in bloom as I type. Parnassia glauca is so beautiful with it’s unique floral venation and Ill post more pics once again when I get to it. The farther you get from the flats the less exposure and with it comes the sedge meadow with Arnoglossum plantagineum, also known as fen plantain leaved indian plantain. The last few shots are associated with the fully scabrid moderate sized var. ,not species, Silphium terebinthinaceum var. pinnatifidum, which we only see in fens in Ohio and the Ice scoured dwarf willow, Salix myricoides, in all of it’s new leaf glory. Still not looking blue with white pubescent undersides just yet.

Personal note: