For the last couple of years I have been wanting to visit the Pine Barrens in NJ to learn more about CP's and how they grow in the wild. I finally visited it yesterday.

While bored yesterday morning I called my father and asked if he would like to go on a road trip and tromp around in the woods. Not knowing what was in store he offered to drive (Thank fully his 4WD truck) and off to the Jersey Pine Barrens we went.

Two hours later we arrived armed with a trail map, GPS, lots of water and lots of motivation. Thankfully we had the GPS because most of the trails and roads were not labeled and were pretty rough.

I wasn't expecting much from the trip. My main goal was to familiarize my self with certain areas that looked promising. If I didn't find anything I would return at a later date and continue looking. I did bring an electronic PH meter, camera and a PPM meter so if I did run across CP's I can document their growing conditions to broaden my understanding of the plants needs.

We came across a patch of lakes that looked like a good spot to start. There was a lot of sphagnum growing and a couple of Drosera intermedia and rotundifolia and some flowering laurel.

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I was pretty happy that I was able to find some CP's and I did some tests. The PH of a little bit of water that was squeezed out of the sphagnum read 4.71 and the PPM was between 0 and 2 but I'm not sure the PPM reading was correct because it would swing at times.

We spent a couple more hours looking around, ate some lunch returned and started off to the next area to explore. After finding lots of sphagnum, scaring bullfrogs and ducks, flicking ticks and cursing at Horse flies that kept biting. I finally found what I was looking for. A nice healthy colony of CP's and some flowering Utricularia.

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Sadly I was not able to find any Sarracenia. Hopefully soon I will have the chance to return and continue my search. Does any one know what type of grass that is growing with the colony of Drosera towards the end of the photos?