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Cobra Lilies (Darlingtonia californica) at
the Darlingtonia Wayside, Oregon
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My
friend Caroline Hatton, a frequent contributor to this blog, dared friends and
family to enter a bog crammed with carnivorous plants in May 2022. She took the
photos in this post and lived to share them.
One of the Oregon
natural wonders I had read about ranked as the weirdest in my view. So I planned
a creepy encounter with it. One gloomy, rainy day, while driving down the
Pacific Coast with husband and friends, I dragged them all to the Darlingtonia Wayside, an Oregon State Natural Site
where carnivorous plants lurk in a dark, dank bog.
Plants that eat
animals? In some Hollywood movies, green vines shoot across the screen,
whipping about until they coil around an unlucky human to gobble down in one
slurp, while adventure mates desperately attempt frantic rescues. In reality,
carnivorous plants merely trap and digest insects.
The Cobra Lily (Darlingtonia
californica), so named because it looks like a snake out to kill you, is
one such plant. Native to Southwestern Oregon and Northern California bogs, it
is also known as Cobra Orchid or Pitcher Plant.
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The boardwalk
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Cobra Lilies are rare,
but easy to see at the Darlingtonia Wayside where they are protected. The site
is located on Highway 101, roughly 3 miles north of the town of Florence, halfway
down Oregon’s Pacific Coast. From the parking lot, a paved trail leads to a
boardwalk over the bog.
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Knee-high Cobra Lilies
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I had seen other
carnivorous plants before, hard to spot, so small and delicate, that’s why they
deserved protection, some kept practically as pets in kids’ bedrooms. But as I stepped
on the boardwalk, the sight of thousands of stout, knee-high plants with a top part
as big as my fist, made me feel queasy.
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Cobra Lilies
crammed in a bog
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It didn’t help
that the mud pond they crowded looked like a giant snake pit.
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Cobra Lily
anatomy
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An info board
detailed the plant parts and sickening feeding habit.
An insect lured by
the nectar on the snake-tongue-like appendage enters the leaf hood from below.
Transparent spots on the hood let light through, looking like exits, which they
are not. The confused insect ends up in the vertical leaf tube, sliding down to
where sharp hairs, pointing down, prevent escape. The insect falls into the
liquid inside the bottom of the leaf tube, where digestive enzymes turn it into
soup that the plant absorbs through its inner wall.
Slurp.
Despite being a
bit grossed out, I couldn’t stop taking photos. And my friend, feeling “so
excited,” declared this site to be “out of this world.” Who needs space tourism
when such a quick and easy trip to an alien universe is free?
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The Cobra Lily
blooms in May or June.
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All text and photos, copyright
Caroline Arnold. www.theintrepidtourist.blogspot.com
