Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Dutchman's Pipe

While walking around my parent's yard, I stumbled across a new flower I had never seen before.

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I plucked the open blossom and my mother identified it as a Dutchman's pipe, a flower she remembered from her childhood. She had not seen the flower since her childhood, so was excited when she came across one at a flower show.
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I did not reallize it on first seeing it, but after closer inspection, I realized that the flower was a carnivorous one. None of my lenses let me focus in close enought to truly show the fibers in the throat that would let a bug crawl down, but never let it out of the container in the back.

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Prior to opening the bud appears as a liver-veined bladder on the vines.
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Thought is it mid-fall, the plant is just now fully recovering from the drought.  There are a number of bulbs growing in one part of the vine. I am looking forward to seeing just what they turn into after blooming and whether catching a bug makes a difference in the post-bloom response.
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