Garcon Point, or how to go back in time without trying.

                                                                                  Sarracenia Leucophylla

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, between Franklin county in the northern part of Florida, over to Escambia county, the last county in the panhandle of Florida, the greatest concentration of pitcher plants in the world is found. 1.  That's quite a statement. One of those places where white pitcher plant grows is about a twenty minute drive from my home.

The best time to see these pitcher plants is in March to the end of April of each year. Now there are other places to see the plants and I have seen them on the Juniper trail in the Blackwater Forest and in the seepage area of Clear Creek, not far from the entrance to Naval Air Station Whiting Field. I like walking both areas, but they take a while to get to. The trail found in Garcon Point is a favorite to walk. It is quiet in a town noise sense. Birds are everywhere and they are the sound one notices walking the trail. Quiet is such an unusual thing in our lives these days, especially if we live in towns, cities, or suburbs, that one has to adjust to the lack of auditory input. It's when one can think without distraction. Yet, the quiet, albeit for the birds, is almost like sensory overload. 

The area is one of magnificent diversity, with pine flats, the vast savannah of grasses that roll over to shores of  the river and bay and the subtle seepage areas found in such "swamps" or what many consider wastelands. Waste they are not, filtering water, protecting the habitats of many mammals, reptiles and amphibians. Many of these wonderful places have fallen to the builder and the ax. But Garcon point, though it was once very much cut for its great yellow pine and farmed, is surviving despite man's greatest endeavor to make it into something it is not.

There along the trail, are other flowers, blooming, flags of bright yellow, bending in the breeze. Their fragile like existence dependent on not so much their ability to survive what nature throws at them, but on the needs of humans and the importance of making a place sanctuary for what nature has sculpted and shaped for more time than man has measured. These places need to be sacred. Once the blade has scraped them away and homes or buildings or roads are built, there is no turning back, no replacing what nature molded. Garcon Point's land is not good for growing tradition crops, not good for homes, it is a flood area. It is a treasure trove of debris washed across the point by Hurricane Ivan some six years ago. Let it be, lit it nourish souls and soothe hearts. Let the breeze off the Gulf play through the pines, swishing the needles together harmonizing with the rattle of turkey oak branches. It is a place without a need for advertisement, or enhancement. It is rare, a protective point of land, ancient and contemporary, with its rare pitcher plants, Curtis grass, and tiny sundews.

1.   http://www.dep.state.fl.us/water/wetlands/delineation/featuredplants/sarrac.htm#Sarracenia%20leucophylla