Appeal tribune. (Silverton, Or.) 1999-current, September 01, 2021, Page 5, Image 5

Appeal Tribune
| WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2021 | 1B
OUTDOORS
SECRET
GARDEN
Hidden Florence preserve is home to bog of carnivorous cobra lilies
Wesley Lapointe Salem Statesman Journal | USA TODAY NETWORK
An unusual plant
Tucked between Florence’s ancient dunes and sea lion caves, Dar-
lingtonia State Natural Site is easily overlooked on the Oregon Coast.
But this 18-acre site is just as unique — if not more so — as its neigh-
boring attractions.
It’s the only Oregon State Parks property dedicated entirely to the
preservation of a single plant species, harboring over a thousand car-
nivorous cobra lilies, or Darlingtonia californica.
Much of the site consists of a roadside lot, a few picnic tables and a
short trail through a spruce and ash thicket. But after just a few minutes
of walking, the thicket opens, and a boardwalk cuts through a bog car-
peted with cobra lilies.
“I’ve found this a great spot to relax after a windy beach walk,” said
Chris Havel, spokesman for the Oregon Parks and Recreation Depart-
ment.
The cobra lily looks other-worldly. Its common name comes from the
serpentine hood and tongue-like forked appendages atop its tapering
stem. In late spring, the plants grow a tall crimson flower.
One of three American pitcher plant varieties, the cobra lily is native
to northern California and southwest Oregon.
Its insect diet is an evolutionary adaptation to provide nitrogen to the
lilies in nutrient-poor fens. To that end, sweet nectar coats the tongue-
like appendage that hangs from the tubular leaf forming the “serpent’s
head”.
Unlike other pitcher plants, which collect rainwater to digest bugs,
the Darlingtonia’s inner workings are hidden from view, and it sucks up
groundwater through its roots to digest the insects that are lured into its
tubular leaf structure.
See GARDEN, Page 2B
The cobra lilies glow in the sun due to the translucent windows in their hooded leaves, which serve as false exits for flies that get lured inside
by the sweet nectar. PHOTO BY WESLEY LAPOINTE/ STATESMAN JOURNAL; PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY MICAELA ENCINAS/USA TODAY NETWORK
Net, weigh, measure, collect — 100,000 times
Fishing
Henry Miller
Guest columnist
HEBO – “Whatever we’re doing,
we’re just going to keep doing it,” Ron
Byrd, the president of the all-volunteer
Nestucca Anglers, said about Rhoades
Pond.
The occasion for the comment was
the 21st annual netting, transport and
release of about 100,000 fall-run Chi-
nook “king” salmon on Aug. 19 from the
fish-raising facility on Three Rivers, a
tributary of the Nestucca River.
If you’ve ever been lucky enough to
catch a hatchery Nestucca Basin fall-
run king, odds are pretty good that it
spent most of its first year growing from
fingerling to smolt size, between 6 and 7
inches, at Rhoades Pond.
“They’ve done studies on the Nestuc-
ca to where up to 25 percent of the fish
(caught) have been Rhoades Pond,”
Byrd said. “So we’re getting a huge, huge
return on these fish.
“Normally, statistics show there’s a 2
percent return on hatchery fish, and
we’re probably getting 4 or 5 percent re-
turn.”
Nestucca Anglers works in partner-
ship with the Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife’s Cedar Creek Hatch-
ery farther downriver under the depart-
ment’s Salmon Trout Enhancement
Program (STEP).
Farther north, the Tillamook Basin
has a similar volunteer-run, salmon-
raising facility under the STEP program
at Whiskey Creek on Netarts Bay oper-
ated by volunteers from Tillamook An-
glers.
“That’s part of the deal, getting vol-
unteer-based groups involved in stuff
like this,” said Ron Rehn, the STEP biol-
ogist out of the Tillamook office of Fish
and Wildlife. “It’s great. All these fish
are benefitting anyone who comes to
fish in both the Tillamook and Nestucca
basins.”
Weighing and measuring some of the
juvenile salmon as volunteers used nets
to crowd the wriggling swarms of fish
toward a large tube that sucked them
into a waiting tanker truck, Rehn said
the fish were right on schedule.
“They’re right on target, right where
we want them: 12 to a pound,” he said,
using a calculator and a clipboard to
make entries on a tally sheet. “We’re av-
eraging about 150 millimeters. That’s
close to 6 or 7 inches, smolt-size.
“That’s what we’re going for.”
And a lot better than the drought year
of 2015, the worst in the pond’s history,
when heat and resulting low, warm wa-
ter triggered emergency releases of
salmon, steelhead and trout from mul-
tiple state and federal hatcheries and
raising ponds.
See MILLER, Page 2B