A day at the Okefenokee Swamp National Wildlife Refuge

I am a volunteer at the Okefenokee Wildlife Refuge .
I always working or not enjoy a day at the swamp.
There are several carnivorous plants blooming right now along the wildlife drive.This one is the Yellow Butterwort. beautiful fragile plants.
Pinguicula, commonly known as the butterworts, is a genus of carnivorous plants that use sticky, glandular leaves to lure, trap, and digest insects in order to supplement the poor mineral nutrition they obtain from the environments.
 Yellow Butterwort, along the wildlife drive.

Purple Butterwort also along the wildlife drive

These are the Hooded Pitcher plants blooming by the borrow ditches on Swamp/wildlife drive

This is the Parrot hooded plant.

Sorry about their quality they were mowed down partially.

This is the Sundew.

There is also a unusual beautiful plant along the drive named Osceola's Plume
or Snakeroot.

Zigadenus densus

Zigadenus densus (Desr.) Fernald

Osceola's plume

Liliaceae (Lily Family)

Another pretty spring flower is the Daisy Fleabane seen along the entrance and the swamp Island drive
Daisy Fleabane
Erigeron annuus • Family: Aster (Asteraceae)

 You can also see the St. John's Wort
Hypericum perforatum, also known as St John's wort, is a flowering plant species of the genus Hypericum and a medicinal herb

 Last one is Rabbit Bells

Family: Papilionaceae (pa-pil-ee-uh-NAY-see-ee) (Info)
Genus: Crotalaria (kroh-tuh-LAR-ee-uh) (Info)
Species: rotundifolia (ro-tun-dih-FOH-lee-uh) (Info)

 Bladderwort is a water plant. It has a wheel type base and very showy.
Utricularia, commonly and collectively called the bladderworts
 Aquatic species, such as U. vulgaris (common bladderwort), possess bladders that are usually larger and can feed on more substantial prey such as water fleas (Daphnia), nematodes and even fish fry, mosquito larvae and young tadpoles. Despite their small size, the traps are extremely sophisticated. In the active traps of the aquatic species, prey brush against trigger hairs connected to the trapdoor. The bladder, when "set", is under negative pressure in relation to its environment so that when the trapdoor is mechanically triggered, the prey, along with the water surrounding it, is sucked into the bladder. Once the bladder is full of water, the door closes again, the whole process taking only ten to fifteen thousandths of a second.^[3][4]
Bladderworts are unusual and highly specialized plants, and the vegetative organs are not clearly separated into roots, leaves, and stems as in most other angiosperms.^[5] The bladder traps, conversely, are recognized as one of the most sophisticated structures in the plant kingdom.<sup>[2]

 1st photo is the root wheel system, second the whole water plant</sup>

 ^{Toadflax plant, We see it as just a weed}

 toadflax, also called spurred snapdragon,  any member of a genus (Linaria) of nearly 150 herbaceous plants native to the North Temperate Zone, particularly the Mediterranean region. The common name refers to their flaxlike leaves; the flowers are two-lipped and spurred like snapdragons. Among the prominent members are common toadflax, or butter-and-eggs (L. vulgaris), with yellow and orange flower parts.

I will do another blog on the plants as they bloom. Water lilys and water Iris are coming in bloom so stay tuned.

So as you can see I love my volunteer work. So come out bring your camera and start snapping. Next blog will be on the animals I get to see.