Mar
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Nowhere else on earth
March 5, 2008 | Subscribe to this post
Posted by Elizabeth Hull in Nature
Early in the process of surveying the Morton collection, I came upon a few mounted images from a “picture story” he had submitted to Life Magazine in 1951—not sure if it was ever published. The title of the photo essay was “Venus Fly Trap Moves Nearer Extinction,” and I was surprised to learn from reading one of the captions that the “moist pine barrens within 40 mile radius of Wilmington, NC are the only spots in the world where [the flytrap] is found growing wild.” News to me!
That same evening (I swear it’s true), I just happened to begin Josephine Humphreys’ novel Nowhere Else on Earth, and what did I read on page 2 but the following beautiful description of the swamps near Wilmington:
Some were pocosins, shallow egg-shaped basins landlocked and still, scattered northwesterly as if a clutch of stars had been flung aslant in one careless toss from heaven, leaving bays that sometimes filled with rain and sometimes dried in the sun, growing gums and poplars and one tiny bright green plant found nowhere else on earth, the toothed and alluring Venus flytrap.
I scanned these two negatives used in the picture story and cropped them almost exactly as Morton did in his enlargements. The image below shows Mrs. Cecil Appleberry (left) and the Cape Fear Garden Club Conservation Committee, at whose insistence, according to Morton’s caption, “a 1951 North Carolina Legislature law restricting commercial shipment of the Venus Fly Trap was enacted.” While presumably a step in the right direction in terms of conservation, Morton also noted that “the real extinction threat comes from drainage.”
These photos highlight not only the conservation history of a rare species, but the fact that Morton himself was interested in native plant protection at this early stage in his career, before he is typically associated with “environmental” causes.
While it has not become extinct, the Venus flytrap still faces threats from a variety of sources. “Vulnerable Venus Flytraps,” an article from the Winter 2006 issue of Nature Conservancy Magazine, describes clever new methods being employed to deter poachers. “Carnivorous Plants in the Southeast Coastal Plain,” a slide show on the Nature Conservancy website, also provides some fascinating background on the flytrap.
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Links
- ArchivesNext - Blog examining archives and technology
- Biographical Conversations with . . . Hugh Morton - An episode from the UNC TV program featuring a one-on-one conversation with Hugh Morton
- Grandfather Mountain - Scenic attraction and nature preserve in Linville, NC owned by Morton from 1952 until his death in 2006
- Morton Biography from Grandfather Mountain website
- NC Collection Photographic Archives
- NC Miscellany Blog - Blog of the North Carolina Collection, Wilson Library, UNC-CH
- Southern Short Course in News Photography - America’s longest running photojournalism seminar, of which Morton was a founder
- UNC Libraries
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I have always been fascinated with the Venus Flytraps. Even wanted one as a child, after reading about them in books. Keep up the good work.
Ah, our official state carnivorous plant. Morton must have been pretty fond of them… the Venus Fly Traps pictured on this postcard were also photographed by Morton:
http://dc.lib.unc.edu/u?/nc_post,1570
After several searches in Readers’ Guide Retrospective, and with the excellent assistance of Mike Van Fossen, I can pretty confidently say that no, this story was never published in Life Magazine. Do you have the text of the story? (Is there text, as a “picture story”?) That would be interesting to include alongside those photos in the digital library.
Hey, thanks for the research, Jeffrey & Mike! There is brief text accompanying each of the images we have from the “picture story,” but unfortunately we only have four of them — #s 2, 3, 5 and 7. Above are #s 2 and 5; if you click on the image, you’ll go to a page where the full text is quoted.
#3 reads: “Moist Pine barrens within 40 mile radius of Wilmington, N. Carolina are the only spots in the world where it [the flytrap] is found growing wild.”
#7 shows a caterpillar crawling on a flytrap, and reads: “A roving caterpillar, lured by a plant odor attractive to insects, explores The Venus Fly Trap.”
I should add that this was an entry in a photo contest. The label on the back of the enlargements says “LIFE contest entry no. 6516.”
This must be venus flytrap month or something… the current issue (March/April 2008) of Audubon Magazine has an article on carnivorous plants. The print has some incredible photos, most of which are unfortunately not reproduced in the online version: http://audubonmagazine.org/features0803/carnivorousPlants.html