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Utricularia adpressa – Savannah Marivat - Macouria – French Guyana
The genus Utricularia have many of its representatives in French Guyana, a country which is rather small ( compared to a country like Brazil, for example ) : you can find 20 species here.
You’ll find some places which will be like overgrown by carnivorous plants : I call these special places << hotspots of diversity >>
The savannah of Marivat is one of these hotspots : here you can find 10 Utricularia sp. and 1 Drosera sp.
Here is a report on one of them : Utricularia adpressa.
This Utricularia has a yellow flower, like most of Guyana’s Utrics.
The floral stem is reddish, short, round, and rather thick ; it measures about 20cm in length, and it grow between the taller grasses of this drier part of the savannah.
Here, the sand covers the ground, few algae have developed themselves during the wet season, and no vegetative debris stranded here : this part of the savannah is the most elevated part of the landscape…
The biotope is free of big trees : nothing is there to provide protection from the sun.
Here is a picture of a group of plants. One can see a healthy population, and one can count many plants : there is place enough for all !
To see as much savage plants is a real pleasure…to watch them from near bring you the ability to enhance your mood, but to know what we know about these plants give another dimension to our interest : how do they live ? What is the size of their preys ? How deep are situated the traps ? …
The plants have good conditions here : the area is not to much perturbed, there is no drainage of the water, Nature is free of human intervention.
Most of the time French Guyana’s savannahs are not exploited. If they are, they are used for farming. In this case, they’ll have been drained, and if the drainage system works well, they can be dried out by mankind.
The soil doesn’t hold the water which it is containing once it is saturated, like every soil…and during the rainy season, these farm grounds become muddy places…in Nature, savannahs are undisturbed, they are covered with grasses, and no harm is done to them….
Savannahs are not visited by people, potential preys for hunters are lacking : the savannah is the kingdom of serpents, which are very dangerous here (Bothrops atrox for example) … also, savannahs don’t have many flowered plants, and there are few insects….
The lower lid of the flower is tall, at this localisation. The Taylor says that these plants can be tall or small, and that they can show colour variations.
The floral stem is short, but it seems to be very strong. It is red, like the colour of wine in a glass, which you hold up in the sunlight…no flower stem was holding seedpods, and I didn’t see any old ones : the flowering was just beginning, I was lucky !
The colour of the flower is rather pale…it’s a big flower too, compared to the relatively small stem.
I didn’t managed to picture the leaves : 2m in length, and 0.4mm “wide”.
Like U.simulans, this Utricularia have traps under its leaves, but in a smaller amount.
I hope you have been interested, your comments are welcome.
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