At the bottom of the pitcher, hairs exude digestive enzymes, and a pool of enzyme rainwater waits to digest the prey. Fortunately for field botanists and nature lovers, pitcherplants eat only insects, but the bones from small frogs have been found in the belly of pitcherplants. Pitcherplants live in bogs. Pitcherplant bogs are acidic, nutrient poor seeps with slowly moving water which usually comes from a spring head. Bogs, most notably Coastal Plain bogs, are wildflower meadows teeming with color and life, probably one of Georgia's most beautiful habitats.
Pitcherplant trumpets raise above a great diversity of wildflowers, orchids, grasses, and sedges.
Coastal Plain bogs are a threatened habitat, once covering thousands of acres in Georgia. Now they have been reduced to tiny pockets because of suppression of fire, drainage of habitat, and chemical runoff from agriculture. Mountain bogs are Georgia's rarest habitat. Once abundant, only two survive today, and location information is guarded to protect Georgia's last sites. Our bogs and the species within are botanical rarities.