Wayside a refuge for predator plant

FLORENCE, Ore. — Marina Wycoff stopped at the Darlingtonia Wayside knowing only what her AAA booklet told her — that it would be a nice walk through a bog. She stepped out of her sedan, placed a visor on her head and walked to an information board with her husband.

When Wycoff read about the plants growing in the 18-acre bog, she was surprised.

"We didn't know there were insect-eating plants here," she said.

Darlingtonia Wayside is a preserve for a threatened plant that traps and eats bugs — the cobra lily.

Oregon is famous for more than 300 miles of scenic coastline where visitors can enjoy stunning basalt rock outcroppings, sea lion caves, cliffs and dunes. Darlingtonia Wayside is not as well-known as the coast's rocky turnouts and vistas, but it is the only state park in Oregon devoted to the protection of one plant — the Darlingtonia californica, a type of pitcher plant that lives off both photosynthesis and the digestion of insects.

The plants typically begin blooming in March, with the exact timing dependent on weather conditions, according to Richard Wilde at the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department's Information Center.

The turn off to the park, formally known as Darlingtonia State Natural Site, is just a few miles north of Florence off Highway 101. Here visitors will find a place that is more science fiction than photo-op — closer to the movie "Alien" than "The Sound of Music." It's a place where carnivorous plants stand quietly, hip-high, waiting for their next meal.

The Wycoffs walked down a wooden-planked trail raised above the protected plants and other flora: skunk cabbages, salal, mosses and wax myrtle.

They halted wide-eyed in front of a 40-square-foot patch of cobra lilies. Bulbous bright-green heads with bruised purplish spots rested on top of twisting hollow vertical leaves — looking like hundreds of dancing cobras. Dead reddish-brown leaves lay decaying at the base of the plants. Water trickled slowly over the plant's rhizomes in the bog.

The cobra lily uses a variety of devices to lure its meals, including a slight odor. The plants smell worse if the leaves are broken or bruised.

Insects are also attracted to the plant's shape, leaf patterns and colors, said Gail Baker, assistant professor of biology at Lane Community College. An insect is drawn into the interior by a play of light, she said.

"Under the inflated part, it is all transparent, like glass windows, and that confuses the insect once it is in."