TRAPPED!

ANGRY SUNSET

PITCHER PLANT'S SECRETIVE FLOWER

PITCHER PLANT FLOWER AND INSECT-CATCHING LEAVES

Tuesday, 8:30 AM.  52 degrees, wind WNW, moderate.  The sky is parly cloudy with puffy white and gray clouds.  The humidity is 70% and the barometer is way  high.  It is a perfect morning.  It was very windy last night, the wind whining and whipping through the masts and lines of the boats at Port Superior Marina where we ate dinner with friend and boater Fred.
    The insectiverous pitcher plants, Sarracenia purpurea (in the pitcher plant family) were indeed blooming on Sunday in the Bark River Slough.  The leathery flowers, although their faces are partially hidden because they are nodding, are quite beautiful.  The “pitchers” are modified leaves that catch first rainwater, and then unwary insects.  A “pitcher” is easy for an insect to enter and almost impossible for it to get out of.  Sharp downward facing hairs on the inside of the “pitcher” trap a hapless insect and force it ever-further into the collected rainwater at the bottom. Sort of like an unwary homeowner sinking further and further into debt and an under-water mortgage, until he is absorbed by the bank. The insect eventually dies and is digested, the nitrates and minerals of its body a welcome supplement to the plant, which struggles to survive in the nutrient poor, highly acid bog environment.      A bog is a uniquely specialized and interesting environment, which we will have to explore in greater depth (maybe up to our knees) at some future time.
    There is so much nonsense currently arising on the political scene that I am having a difficult time even thinking about it, much less commenting on it.  Perhaps I am trapped in Recall Fatigue.