Feed Me!

Pitcher Plants are in bloom! The original Audreys. If you’ve ever seen the campy film The Little Shop of Horrors, you know just what I mean. The strange plant in the movie didn’t want anything the florist gave it, except human blood:
“I’ve given you sunshine,
I’ve given you rain.
Still you’re not happy,
‘Til I open a vein.”
The pitchers, along with a few other plants, are the real-life prototype of Audrey—the carnivorous plant. Fortunately, however, the pitchers consume insects rather than human flesh and blood. White-topped pitchers are native to northwest Florida and the showiest of the pitchers, with their white, pink-veined tubes and ruffly edges.

I did a 16-mile training ride on the Blackwater Trail this morning, before heading for campus. The weather was cloudier and muggier than it’s been, but still not too, too hot. At least we’d had a little rain late last week, so things were greener. I’d been especially worried about the pitcher plants that live along the trail. Last week I hardly saw any pitchers there, and what few I did see were all grey and shriveled—very sad.

But today! They were all over the place. They’d taken advantage of the brief precipitation last week to blossom into their gorgeous white and pink-veined selves, ascending from their sturdy green stalks. Pitchers are wild, but choosy. They like their feet damp, but not continuously wet; they favor wetlands, but have particular nitrogen preferences as far as soil content goes. They seem very happy along the Blackwater Heritage trail, our local paved, rails-to-trails recreational greenway. I guess they were just waiting for a little rain. Just as well, I suppose. The much-drier-than-usual-spring has also resulted in a less-hearty-than-usual crop of early spring insects, which are the food on which the pitchers thrive.

Those lovely, delicate-looking, lacily-veined cups are slippery inside and lined with downward-pointing hairs. The unsuspecting insect, lured by the plant’s color and scent and its promise of nectar, slips into the cup, can’t climb out because of the hairs, and eventually slides into the liquid at the bottom of the cup (which actually narrows to a tube), where the liquid digests it to make it usable food for the plant. Mmmmm…..

I thought it looked as if these two pitchers were having a little dialog.
“Mmm, you shoulda seen that fly I had for breakfast. I can still taste it. Urrpppp!”
“Well, excuse you! I had a couple of nice delicate midges.”
“Hey, look, a fat ol’ bee!”
“Come ‘ere, honey—nice yummy nectar, right here….”
“Hey, I saw it first. Here, buzzy boy!”
You get the idea.

In addition to the pitchers, I also saw a wild bunny, vacationing, no doubt, after her long arduous weekend of delivering Easter baskets, a small black snake (whom I called Snaky-Poo for no apparent reason) wiggling across the trail, and good old Ms. Go-Slow, eyeing me suspiciously. Did you know you shouldn’t turn a turtle 360 degrees because it might cause twisting of its intestines? Remember that the next time you’re struck with the urge to turn a turtle.

Anyway, it was a long, lovely ride, but about a mile from the end, I noticed that I sure was hungry. Just like Audrey: “Feed me!”