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Caroline biological research station receives grant Date published: 2/3/2011
By RUSTY DENNEN For years, the Meadowview Biological Research Station has been working to preserve rare carnivorous plants and their habitat. The Caroline County site has received a $2,500 grant toward those efforts from a Stafford County conservation fund. The "Duff" McDuff Green Jr. Fund recently offered the grant to Meadowview, "to further your work to protect native pitcher plants through a nature preserve in Caroline County." The fund is a component of the Community Foundation of the Rappahannock River Region. Meadowview, according to its director, Phil Sheridan, will use the money to create a pitcher plant preserve and nature trail through its property along State Route 2. "We need assistance to complete restoration work and trail construction, install educational signs, build boardwalks and install a bench seating area for mentored school visits," Sheridan said in the application. According to Sheridan, pitcher plant habitat is fast disappearing because of encroaching development and habitat loss. The concern is that the plants, without protection, could become extinct in Virginia. There are two protected pitcher plant populations left in the state. One straddles the Prince George-Essex County line; the other is on the Zuni Pine Barrens in Isle of Wight County. The plants used to be common on bog areas in much of Virginia, and biologists say their disappearance shows how much the landscape is changing. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, Virginia has lost more than 40 percent of its wetlands since the 1780s. Less than a million acres remain, most of them in the fast-developing urban crescent from Northern Virginia to Hampton Roads. Pitcher plants grow in nutrient-poor soil. They have evolved to get part of the nourishment they need from the carcasses of insects. Beetles, ants, spiders, flies, moths and other bugs fall into enzymes in the pitcher, where they are dissolved and consumed. They're not the only bug-eating plants. Venus flytraps, native to a small coastal area in North Carolina, and sundews, some native to Virginia, are more common. Meadowview is a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving and restoring rare wetland plants, habitats and ecosystems on the coastal plain of Virginia and Maryland. Founded in 1995, it is headquartered in Villeboro, off Route 2 in Caroline County. It specializes in an endangered habitat known as pitcher plant bogs, or seepage bogs--acidic, nutrient-poor wetlands with a unique mix of plants and animals. Meadowview's goal is to preserve purple and yellow pitcher plants and develop a system of bog preserves in both states. Rusty Dennen: 540/374-5431
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