Pitcher Plants, Terror of Things That Go Buzz

The Volo Bog is called a quaking bog by those who know wetland subclassifications, but it was the Volo Bog Interpretive Trail that did most of the quaking -- or at least wobbling -- when we walked on it. "It's moving," I heard either Lilly or Rachel say ahead of me, since they were first to reach the trail, which is a boardwalk over the bog. The boardwalk's wobble is a little unnerving at first, but before long you get used to it. For anyone over about three years old, anyone who is sober anyway, the danger of pitching into the bog is pretty low.

The first section of the trail crossed "open" water, though of course it's no such thing. There's a lot of boggy things going on in that water.

Soon the trail passes through more dense growth, including trees. But since it's still in the bog, it should be noted that everything, including the trees, is floating.

Just as the trail entered the dense growth, we encountered a woman with binoculars who was watching a sandhill crane on the ground -- on the surface of the bog, that is -- not far away. She pointed it out to us and let us look at the thing through her binoculars. I don't think I've seen one before, but then again I don't usually go out of my way to look for birds. It was big and gray. That's the trouble I have with learning natural history. I can't remember much more than that about the creatures I see, and I'm especially good at forgetting their names.

The woman on the Volo Bog Interpretive Trail doesn't have that problem. She briefly became our guide because she was enthusiastic about pointing out bog flora and fauna. A large muskrat, for instance. Actually she didn't need to point it out; we all saw it as it parked itself just a few feet away from the boardwalk, rapidly eating leaves. But she was able to tell us that it was eating blue flag iris, adding that the leaves would be poisonous to us, but not the muskrat.

She also pointed out other plants I'd never heard of it -- pitcher plants. Carnivorous pitcher plants. What former boy doesn't thrill at the thought of a meat-eating plant? Even if they aren't large enough to swallow unwary members of safaris, as those of us who watched enough movies on Saturday afternoons years ago learned happened from time to time.

Only a few days ago, one Adrian Higgins wrote in the Washington Post: "Among meat-eating bog plants, the Venus' flytrap gets all the fuss. Okay, so its leaf snaps shut like a monster's mouth. Hold my coffee while I clap. My vote is for another native carnivore, the pitcher plant.

"There are a handful of species, some tall and pale, others short and squat, and all producing decorative hooded tubes with a lacelike pattern that gives them a reptilian quality. In short, they are beautiful, and they have made the leap from the sour and soggy peat bog into the garden..."

Since he's a garden writer, he doesn't really detail how the pitchers lure and trap hapless flies and other insects. A fellow named Mike Baker, on a web site devoted to New Jersey Pine Barrens plants, does: "The inside of the tubular shaped leaf is lined with downward pointing hairs. These hairs block an insect from climbing up the tube and escaping. The fluid in the bottom of the tube contains digestive juices that will consume the insect prey."

The Volo Bog

It was overcast on Saturday but at least the unpleasant chill was gone. It was a fine day for being outside, so Lilly, Ann, Lilly's friend Rachel and my old friend Kevin Deany and I drove into the heart of Lake County via U.S. 12, another of those unsung transcontinental routes (Detroit to the Pacific in Washington state). Near Volo, Illinois, is the Volo Bog State Natural Area. It's a fine place for a walk. Just look:

Missing from that picture is any evidence of the boardwalk trail -- the half-mile Volo Bog Interpretive Trail -- that snakes through the bog. Without the trail the bog would be a difficult place to visit up close. A sign at the beginning of the trail is clear about that, warning hikers not to fall in ("please stay on the trail" it says) because of hazardous soils and poisonous plants.

The DNR web site tells us that Volo is the "only 'quaking' bog in Illinois to have an open-water center," which seems like stretching for a distinction, but never mind. It's a "quaking" bog because of its unstable surface, and there probably aren't that many in Illinois, open-water center or not.

"Volo Bog was originally a deep 50-acre lake, with steep banks and poor drainage," notes the DNR. "Research on pollen grains preserved in the bog indicates that the lake began filling with vegetation approximately 6,000 years ago. A floating mat, consisting primarily of sphagnum moss, formed around the outside edges among the cattails and sedges. As these plants died and decomposed, the peat mat thickened, forming a support material for rooted plants. Because of the lack of drainage and the presence of sphagnum moss, the water in the bog became acidic. This limited the types of plants that could survive and thus created the unique plant communities found in the bog." (More on the bog is here.)