This is another Warren, TX seepage bog, a few feet away from a paved road.
Long and narrow, typical of area bogs, with about 2 feet of the purest
packed white sand covering a long clay bowl. The ground slopes downward
at the northern end creating a shallow pool about one foot deep in the middle,
in which hundreds of 'Texas trumpets' (Sarracenia
alata) sit in standing water all winter long.
It's about 100 feet long, about 20 feet at its widest, and about 10 feet at its
narrowest. Another big concentration of S. alata is at the southernmost end of the bog,
and less-concentrated clumps in between. Between the two ends, numerous colonies of
pink sundews (Drosera capillaris) and red sundews (Drosera brevifolia),
glisten in the sunshine with gleaming wet white sand as a background.
Long-fiber sphagnum (sphagnum macrophyllum)
also lives here in small and large patches, prefering the drier edges of the bog to the more wet middle.
Here, like at other sites, one can observe perfectly good (looking) spots in the bog, clean white sand saturated with the clearest water,
without any pitcher plants growing there! Is it simply where last season's seed ended up and germinated?
The pitcher plants on the southern end grow in half-shade among young long-leaf pines, which border the whole bog.
The seep flows from south to north on the packed sand surface for about 30 feet, forming a small shallow stream which saturates the entire area.
The bog had not been burned that year, but was not too overgrown yet. I roughly estimated the population of S. alata to be between 1500 and 2000 plants.
This bog was condemned by the TXDOT, to become the eastern extension of the road nearby.
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